Embers
by Nastrandir
Summary: After she's sent down to Alchera to find the pieces of her ship, Shepard begins to wonder how she might put back together the pieces of herself.
1. Echoes

_Finally a foray into Mass Effect territory, and style-wise, somewhat different again from my other stories. As always, Bioware owns nearly everything. A reminder of the rating - mostly due to language, for the moment. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter One: Echoes**_

The black sky above was full of stars, and the cold stillness pressed in on all sides. Slowly and carefully, she made her way down the slope again and felt the give of the snow beneath her heels. She brushed past the clinging ice and saw how the tiny crystals fled into the brittle air.

In the closed pouch at her waist, the dogtags clanked and jangled, and she tried not to think of their names.

Her boots slid against the hard curve of the ice, and she stopped, steadying herself. She let herself look at the high black spars that reared up, the ragged pieces that had been her ship, had been _their_ ship.

The fires and the bright, slicing beams from the Collector ship had torn the patterns that she could see in the wreckage. The fall onto this snowbound white planet had done the rest, scattered the bits of her ship across the uneven, pale landscape like broken glass. She stopped again. She pressed one gloved hand against something the colour of charcoal, something that had been part of a floor or a wall or a door, she supposed. It was solid and as unrelentingly cold as the air that plumed against her helmet.

_Bits and pieces_, she thought, and her throat tightened. Bits and pieces of lives, and all of them trapped in the ice. She let herself linger a heartbeat or so longer, looking at the jagged dark edge of it. She gripped it hard, hard enough that it bit into her palm.

She had remembered it, eventually, in strange jolts and bursts of memory. She had remembered it sitting with her head between her knees and her gut heaving and hoping desperately that neither Taylor nor Lawson needed her.

_The floor giving way beneath her and the smoke all roiling against her visor and Joker's harsh uneven breathing over the comm and the lurching awful knowledge that the ship was about to die. _

"_Commander Shepard? Are you in there?"_

_Fucking Lawson, she knew, her voice clipped and curious and her hands already knocking at the locked door. _

"_Yeah," Shepard said. "Yeah."_

"_Commander, we need to go. Now." _

_Another breath, and another, and slowly the blackness slipped away from the edges of her vision. She dug her fingers into her palms and looked at the small room, stared at the details of it until they burned. Walls and a door and a sink. Walls and a door and a sink and the rest of the small Cerberus station wrapping around and beneath it. _

That _was all she needed to care about now. Breathing and how to keep doing it and figuring out just what Cerberus wanted from her. _

"_Commander."_

_She swallowed past the thickness in her throat. "Yeah." _

She slogged past the grey arches again, metal spearing up through the snow. The measured sound of her own breathing matched her steps. Somewhere behind her, the debris lay twined between ice and rubble and rock. The cold was worming its way under her skin and every breath she took tasted of it. At the shuttle, she dragged herself up the ramp and thumped twice on the cockpit door. The shuttle lifted off smoothly, and she sat near the small window and made herself watch as the white wastes fell away.

She stepped onto the _Normandy_ at the change of the late shift. She strode up to the cockpit and was greeted by Joker's pale, shadowed face when he spun the chair around.

"Done," she said, before he could say anything, before he could say anything that might be comforting. "Got them all. And tell Hackett I put up his memorial for him."

"Will do, Commander." Joker's head tilted, and his eyes darted away from hers. "Did you get Pressly's?"

"Got them all," she repeated.

Later, in her cabin, she sat with her feet up on the desk and glared at the sprawling grey empty space. Enough room to lie down between the couch and the small table, and the glimmering empty aquarium could have happily housed half a shoal of something big. She tapped her fingers against her elbows and leaned back in her chair until she thought she could feel the thrumming pulse of the engines.

The cabin was too big, and she _hated_ it.

It and the blinking datapads beside her feet.

"EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"How long til whatever the hell it is that I'm doing tomorrow?"

"A little over seven hours, Shepard," EDI responded with laconic, glass-edged timing.

"Thanks."

She wasted half an hour in the shower, eyes closed beneath the rushing fall of the water. Hot enough almost to hurt, hot enough to make her scars prickle and twinge, and she stood there until the back of her neck ached. As an absent-minded afterthought, she rubbed shampoo through her hair and fumbled for the nearest towel. Afterwards, she wrestled her damp arms and legs into the sleeveless top and shorts she usually tried to rest in. Another six steps had her on the bed and half under the clean white sheets and sliding into uneasy sleep.

The dreams woke her before the alarm did, and she kicked her way into her fatigues with brisk, practiced rhythm. A deck down, she found the mess hall almost deserted. Mercifully, Gardner only nodded to her when she went in search of coffee and something suitably bland for breakfast.

A familiar shadow slanted across the table, and Garrus said, "Shepard."

"Hey."

He nodded back to her, and as silently, he sat opposite her, a tray between his hands.

She stared down into her half-empty mug and murmured, "Alchera."

"Shepard?"

"That's what the planet was called. I only knew because Hackett told me."

Garrus tipped his head to one side. "You alright?"

"Yeah," she lied. She lifted her head and looked at him, looked at the livid scars that curled around one side of his face. "Just tired, I guess."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Yeah. No." She shrugged and eventually, she said, "It was cold there. Very cold. Everything was blue and white. Bits of our _Normandy_ everywhere. Bones of it."

For a long moment, Garrus stared down at the table. "What did it make you think, seeing it?"

"Not every day you get to go to the place where you died." She grinned, horribly, and pushed on despite the thickness in her throat, the strange burn behind her eyelids. "Well, I suppose technically I didn't die there. I guess I got it somewhere just outside the atmosphere."

This time, Garrus said nothing. Instead, he stayed wordless and patient, and his blue eyes stayed pinned on hers.

"It was cold," she said again. "That's all I can think about. How cold it was. Is that weird?"

"Yeah," Garrus told her, and she heard the sliding, wry note in his voice that meant he was gently amused. "Very weird."

"Thanks, Vakarian. You're so supportive."

"That's what I'm here for."

"Yeah." She snorted. She swung around on the chair and rolled her shoulders. "Sure it is."

"So why am I up this early today?"

"Because you're volunteering to help me take Jack out to an old Cerberus facility."

"Not that I'd dare complain, but why?"

"Because she wants to blow it up."

Garrus laughed. "Fair enough."

She sipped at the cooling dregs of the coffee. "Zaeed and Grunt will be with us. Jack swears blind the facility's gone dead."

"But who'd know."

"You read my mind," she said, and smiled.

Other words floated between them, the Cerberus names and Cerberus colours of the ship, _their ship_, and she wondered if there would ever be time to talk about it properly, talk about Cerberus properly. _Hell_, she thought. _There'd already _been_ time, time between Omega and here, time between the day he'd walked out of the medbay with half his face stripped away and this day, this day that was not really a morning, except that the ship cycles told her it was. _But they had too much to do, and her mug was empty now, and she had to head into the CIC and give the order to start swinging the ship around towards Pragia. So she nodded to Garrus and pushed the mug away.

As always, she waited and watched while they punched in the co-ordinates, and she let Chambers bounce through her usual ritual and replied that yes, she was fine, and yes, she probably looked tired, and yes, it was probably because of the lighting. She turned away from the young woman eventually, murmuring some excuse, and strode back through the cavernous high archways of the ship.

_Too high_, she thought. _Too big, too much space, too bright. _

She strapped her armour on piece by gleaming piece, and when the familiar weight of it was snapped into place across her shoulders, she breathed out slowly. The weapon harness was next, and the heavy wrap-around belt, and as always, she ran her fingers over the rifle and the solid weight of the pistol.

"Shepard," EDI said, and her blue globe flickered into life.

"ETA?"

"Ten minutes, Shepard."

"Thanks, EDI," she answered, automatically. She rolled her shoulders beneath the encasing press of her armour and yanked her gloves on. "I'll be right down."

* * *

><p>Pragia, as it turned out, was a jungle hellhole masked by squalling sheets of rain and a humidity level that fogged the inside of Shepard's visor. After the shuttle's readouts promised the air was breathable, she swore and tugged her helmet off.<p>

Beside her, Jack was a bundle of venomous energy, and more than once, Shepard snapped at her to stay in place. Inside the facility, the pitted walls reeked of mildew and something older, something rotten. Puddles slicked the floor, and Shepard watched as Jack prowled through them, her feet sweeping up small surges of water. More of it fell in dripping curtains from the gaps in the roof, ribboning the bright lines and swirls of Jack's tattoos, running down her shoulders.

Jack hurried them past empty grey blocks of stone, and when she muttered, "They kept kids in here,", Shepard swallowed.

She remembered other places, places like this, held suspended in space on tiny remote platforms. She remembered the twisting, seeping creatures that had been taken from Feros and grown, and Admiral Kahoku's body, and when Jack struggled to open another door, Shepard rammed the butt of her rifle against the panel until the door slid wide.

Deeper in, the air was misted with hanging curtains of moisture, and when an armed party of vorcha hurtled through a half-broken archway, their feet slipped and scraped against the tiles. A volley of well-placed shots took down the first wave, and Shepard sank down to her knees, her shoulders against an upturned crate. Beside her, Jack's slim figure buzzed and blurred, and a burst of blue energy seethed through the vorcha, sweeping them aside. As smoothly, Shepard uncoiled and aimed past Jack's rigid shoulder. Her next shot took a vorcha clean through the throat and one of Garrus' pinned the last one to the floor.

_It was easier now_, she thought, as she flanked Zaeed through the next archway. Easier and understood and each shot cushioned into the bracing weight of her shoulder, and her muscles obeying as she spun and dropped again, head curved beneath the slope of a fallen beam. Easier now that she had relearned the rhythm of it, the half-instinctive, half-trained pattern of it, of how to listen and look, _always listen_, even if the air was a crackling wild mess of gunfire and noise. _Always listen_, she thought, listen between the layers for the single tiny sound that could save.

"_Commander, get _down_," the woman's voice snapped again. "Now."_

_Awkwardly, she complied. Her shoulders smacked hard against the wall, and she breathed in slowly. She made herself pause, made herself marshal her thoughts. Her head was reeling, and whenever she touched the raised, painful lines on her face, she felt the wet slide of blood or sweat or both. The pistol was heavy in her other hand, and when she raised it, the muscles along her arm trembled. _

"_Next corner, Commander," the woman said, and her voice drove into Shepard's skull. "Two mechs. Fifteen feet and closing." _

_She gritted her teeth. She tried to lift the pistol and tried to stand up at the same time and her stomach flipped. Out loud, she swore, and when the woman asked if she was alright, she shook her head and did not respond. She tipped her head back against the wall and listened. Listened until she could hear it, the familiar metal scrape as the mechs walked, both of them keeping to the same tempo. _

_She turned, then, turned until her shoulders twinged, spinning out into the corridor. She got off two shots before the muzzle climbed away from her and the third bit uselessly into the wall. Desperately, she flung herself back and listened again. The woman said something else, and Shepard ignored her. She braced herself, and a single motion had her out in the corridor again. _

_She knew the mechs' height, knew their gait, and knew how they fired. _

_She lifted the pistol, and the first shot burrowed into one of the mechs at throat height. It toppled, shedding sparks, and she squeezed the trigger again and again until the second one fell beside it. _

"_Shepard?"_

_Arms shaking, she lowered the pistol. "Still here." _

Another wide, low-roofed room held debris and vorcha, and krogan, all four of them charging at startling speed. Zaeed and Garrus slowed two of them, heavy rounds thudding with punishing impact. Shepard crouched and focused on the third, each controlled burst whittling away at its shields. Beside her, Jack screamed something, and a shuddering wave of blue energy tipped the fourth krogan onto its side.

As fast, Jack was on her feet and moving.

"Shepard," Garrus said, and straightened, his rifle lifting with measured, careful grace. "I've got you. Go."

Without thinking, she shoved upright and bolted after Jack. Two shots rang out, whirring past her shoulder, and the krogan dropped. Another hail followed, and she heard the vorcha as they hissed and shrieked. Shepard cleared the distance to the last doorway, and through it, she slowed her pace. "Jack?"

"In here," she called back.

Cautiously, Shepard trailed her voice until the corridor snaked round and into a small room.

A small room that held Jack and a man, a man on his knees with his face all shiny with perspiration, and Jack's pistol lodged beneath his chin.

"Explain," Shepard said.

"He's an old friend," Jack spat. "He was here too."

Another child, Shepard understood as Jack spoke of fights and injections and the drunken whirling pleasure of it. Other children always watching and pointing and whispering. Glass that had rattled and shook under Jack's fists and never given way. A table that became a shelter and hid her from everything except the needling bright lights. Another child brought in like so much flotsam, and turned into a Cerberus statistic.

"_Want a tour, Commander?"_

"_No, thank you, Taylor. I'll find my own way around."_

_He nodded. "Whatever you want. I'll be in the armoury if you need anything."_

_They had given her the whole of the loft deck, she understood, and Taylor's smile had widened even more when he told her. There was plenty of space, she understood, and she should spend some time going through the weaponry inventory. Instead, she made her way to the medbay, and when she saw that it was true, that it _was_ Chakwas in the chair, she swallowed. _

"_Commander Shepard," Chakwas said, and smiled. "Good to see you."_

"_Good to be seen, Doc." _

_The silence stretched between them, tremulous and thin. Shepard looked at the doctor, at the white and black Cerberus uniform. Chakwas and yet not quite Chakwas, and she wondered why that bothered her. _

"_So," she said, and flopped into the spare chair. "Tell me. Why the uniform change?"_

"_Soon," Chakwas answered in that same incisive tone. "Sit up here and let me have a look at you."_

"_Why?"_

"_Operative Lawson informs me you've been taking it too quickly since waking up."_

"_Waking up." She scrubbed a hand through her hair. Her hair that was too long and brushing the back of her neck and the top of her shoulders and suddenly she knew she wanted to change it. "Yeah. Waking up."_

"_Shepard," Chakwas said, softly. _

"_Yeah. I know. I'm good."_

"He's here and he shouldn't be," Jack snarled. Her arm tightened around the man's neck, hauling him half off his knees. "He's part of _this place_."

Shepard looked at her, at the way she was hunched around the man, holding an old piece of her past between shaking arms. "Do what you need to."

For a long moment, Jack froze. Eventually, her fingers locked in the man's hair and yanked his head back and a single shot blew half his face out. She let the man fall, and Shepard followed her, followed her into the small room that had been all the world of her childhood.

"Strange," Jack said, in that forced, odd tone that Shepard knew she used when she was wrestling with herself. "Just a room."

"In a way. It's also not just a room."

"No prison psych bullshit, Shepard. You promised."

She allowed herself a small smile. "Yeah."

Jack's eyes flickered again, wide and limpid. She looked at the walls and the ceiling and the old pitted marks near the door. Her hands jostled against each other. "Come on," Jack said. "Let's go see if this place looks any prettier when it's exploding."

* * *

><p>Four hours later, Shepard worked the last of the strain from her muscles and noted that, when she finally stepped off the treadmill, her eyelids were pleasantly heavy. She endured dinner down in the mess hall, and half-listened as Hadley sniped at Gardner and the two kids from engineering rallied to Gardner's defense.<p>

Afterwards, in her cabin, she checked the last report left on her desk, apparently forwarded from Lawson, and concerning yet another tiny human colony somewhere, plucked clean of people and left empty.

_Humans_, she thought, and sank into the chair.

Always humans, and always small planets, and all of them lifted and taken into those coffin-shaped _things_ she had seen on Horizon. She remembered the way the mild warm wind had stirred the pale yellow grass between the housing blocks there, the way the silence had slipped into the gaps in the doorways and wrapped around her until her every nerve was screaming.

She turned, her hand hovering over the comm station. Garrus would still be up, she was almost certain. They could trade training horror stories, or shamelessly one-up each other, or gossip about their new employers.

_But he'd be busy, or he'd be tired, and besides, it was different now. They both knew it was different, because of Cerberus, and Omega, and what had happened over the white wastes of Alchera. _

Instead, she tapped three numbers into the comm station and said, "Joker?"

"Getting my beauty sleep," he replied, immediately.

"Like hell. You never sleep."

"Yeah, well. What can I do for you, Commander?"

"Did Hackett respond?"

"Yeah," Joker said, quietly. "Said to say good work and thanks."

"That's it?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks, Joker."

She lifted her hand off the button and stared at the back of her knuckles, laced with scars. She looked at the desk again, with its rows of books and the medal case and the framed pictures.

_It was an echo_, she thought. _They were all echoes. Echoes of something that had once been, thrown back at her now, distorted. _

She glanced at the books again, grabbed one with a brightly-coloured spine. She flipped it over and saw that the cover was as luridly decorated. Almost amused, she curled herself in bed and eventually, she fell asleep, her fingers jammed between the pages and the overhead lights still on.


	2. PickUp

_A very big thank-you to everyone who's reviewed and has this story on alerts and favourites. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Two: Pick-Up **_

Shepard stared down at the datapad for another long moment, and then back up to Lawson's face. "You're kidding."

"I'm not sure I follow, Commander."

"You knew we'd be likely going to Haestrom, I take it?"

"I was privy to the Illusive Man's initial dossier shortlist. Yes."

"Then you knew we'd be picking up Tali. Since when?"

"I wasn't certain, Commander."

It was irrational, Shepard knew. Irrational and bad form and yet still the anger lingered, curling in the pit of her belly. "I worked with Tali'Zorah for a long time. I consider her a friend. I would have liked to know a little earlier than this."

"Yes, Commander," Lawson answered, in the same urbane tone. She accepted the datapad from Shepard, her alabaster fingers sliding along its edges. "Have you read the accompanying information?"

"Yes. That'll be all, Lawson."

"Commander."

Except _she_ was in Lawson's pristine, white-walled office, and stiffly, she turned away. Almost without thinking, she crossed the empty space of the mess hall and down the long, arching corridor towards the main battery.

"Take a break," she said, when Garrus turned from the control panel. "And no, I don't care what you're doing."

"Nice."

"Yeah." She sank onto the bench and felt the weight of his gaze on her.

"What's up, Shepard?"

"We're going to go find Tali."

Garrus' head tipped to one side. "Really?"

"Oh, yeah. Really. Turns out, just like you, she's on our employer's magical secret list. _Unlike_ you, she's not under some swish codename."

"Thanks," he said, sounding mildly affronted.

"On Freedom's Progress I thought I was saying goodbye. Again."

"What happened?" Garrus asked.

She stared down at the buckles on her boots, mirror-bright. "I told you. There were mechs, and no people left, and we teamed up. Until most of her team got fried."

"Yeah, you told me that."

She let the silence linger, uncomfortable and prickling. "I laid into her about letting her squad fuck things up. They didn't _need_ to try screw us over. And yeah, I know, Cerberus colours, and her men were idiots and ran on ahead. I know. I've thought it through and through." She rubbed the heel of her hand against her chin. "God, Garrus. I hope we find her in time."

"You will." Almost idly, he sat beside her. "You always do."

She laughed, hollowly. "Not always."

"So what's the mission?"

"Haestrom. Which is very close to a very big, very fat star that's close to going nova."

"And if she's with her own people, my guess is they're investigating."

"And quarian strike teams tend to investigate geth," Shepard finished, deliberately mimicking his thoughtful tone. "Want to come shoot some geth with me?"

"I never turn down a generous offer, Shepard."

"I know."

"Hey, Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

He nudged her. "Want to hear what I've been doing to the main gun?"

"Sounds filthy," she said, and smirked. "Go on, Vakarian. Stun me."

"The firing algorithms are a bitch, but once it's all together, it'll rip through anything that tries to put a hole in the hull."

"Sexy," Shepard said, and punched his arm lightly.

"It's a nice piece of machinery," he protested. "The whole ship is."

"Yeah. I know."

"Yeah."

She stared down at her hands. Slowly, she let her gaze wander across to where his were clasped across his knee. She looked further up, and into the severe angles of his face, and blurted, "You know what I dreamed about last night?"

"What?"

"That stupid fucking white planet."

"Alchera," Garrus said.

"You dream about Omega?"

For a long moment, he was silent, his blue eyes meeting hers. "Yeah," Garrus said, very quietly, and somehow, strangely, it sent the warmth of reassurance uncurling through her. "I do."

* * *

><p>In her cabin, Shepard paced and counted off the minutes. A deliberately brutal workout in the gym had devoured two hours, and a shower had swallowed another half, but still, it seemed too long until Haestrom.<p>

_Tali_, she thought. _Tali who she'd railed at on Freedom's Progress. Tali who she'd looked at through new eyes that were still aching under the bright landing lights. Tali who'd stuck with her since they'd blundered into her in that slimy alleyway in the Citadel wards. _

Kaidan who had been on Horizon and Garrus who was still here and she wondered _why the fuck she was still turning their names over. _All of their names, everyone who'd been on the _Normandy_, and they rolled around in her head when she woke too sharply in the clammy darkness.

Haestrom was somewhere in the reaches of the Far Rim, she knew, and hoping the ship would burn its way there any sooner was foolish. Still, the impatience prickled beneath her skin with every step, so she slammed a hand onto the comm station and said, "Garrus, you alive down there?"

"Yeah," came his amiable reply. "Why?"

"Didn't want to make the trip down if you weren't. I'm bored and pacing. You got anything better to do than entertaining me?"

"You make a tempting case," he answered. "You coming down here or am I slogging up there?"

"That sounds like an argument," she retorted. "I'll be right down."

"I'll be here."

It was almost too easy, sometimes. Too easy to pretend that it was the same, or similar. Too easy to pretend that she might wander down and find him doing something to the Mako, up to his elbows in black oil and his eyes all alight when he talked about it. Except that it _wasn't_ the same, and there was no Mako, not on this ship, and it would only be the two of them, pretending.

_Always pretending_, she thought, and shook her head.

_If pretending worked, then pretending it was. _

She found him exactly where she expected, his three-taloned hands flickering over the control panel. She remembered, terribly she remembered, how she had so flippantly strode into Afterlife, because back then Archangel was nothing more than a single codename, a reflection of someone she thought she could not possibly know.

_ "And Archangel…well, let's just say he probably has less time than any one of those plague victims Mordin thinks he can help."_

_ Shepard kept her expression neutral. "Why?"_

_ "He's got himself into a spot of trouble."_

_ "What kind of trouble?" _

_ Aria looked her up and down again, raking and thoughtful. "What's your interest?"_

_ "I'm putting a team together," she answered blandly. "He's on my list."_

"You're a bad influence, Shepard," Garrus said, as he turned. His mandibles lifted in that strange approximation of a smile. "Interrupting all my hard work."

"Really?"

"No, not really."

"Didn't think so." She leaned back against the closed doors until the coolness of the metal seeped through against her skin. "Sometimes," she said. "Sometimes I figure this is the worst part of any mission."

"Gone up against Reapers before, have you?" Garrus retorted mildly.

"Just the one, and it made quite a mess as I recall." She rubbed her knuckles against her forehead. She was aware of his listening, patient presence across the room, and something about it eased the stiff strain in her shoulders. "I mean the part where you haven't finished _starting_ the mission. I feel like everything's taking too long. Every time it takes us forty hours to swing through a relay and change course direction to go to some forsaken lump of rock somewhere, some human colony is getting sucked clean."

"Can't do anything too quickly, Shepard. You know that. You _told_ me that."

"Well, yeah, but that was back when I was making it up as I went along."

"Bullshit," he admonished her.

"Fine, but Saren wasn't…Saren was different, and the colours of my ship were different."

"Yeah," he said. "I can't say I wasn't surprised. You and Cerberus."

"I know." Angrily, she shook her head. She remembered it, sharply and close to bitter, the raw shock in his voice that day, the day he had woken up in the medbay, half his face reduced to bandages and a metal plate and cybernetics.

_"Cerberus, Shepard? Really?"_

_ "They're paying the bills," she said, and forced her tone light. She tried not to look at him, at this turian who had once been her friend and was now some wounded stranger, his hands still shaking with the effect of the painkillers, and his blue eyes all dull with the echoes of agony. _

"Hey," Garrus said, softer. "What I said still stands. I'm not going anywhere til this is done. Besides, if I did, who'd save your neck with a perfectly timed shot?"

"Yeah, I know." She battled to find something suitably absurd to say in response, something that might make him laugh, something that would have been so ordinary and usual, two and a bit years ago. Nothing could be too serious, and she knew that, because if it was too serious, then they might have to talk about actual consequences, and worst outcomes, and _that_ would never do, not for soldiers, not for the two of them. "You're not that good."

"Keep telling yourself that, Shepard."

* * *

><p>The heat hit her like a mallet, and even the filtered air through her helmet was dry and acrid. Any sidestep into the sunlight made her shields hiss and flicker, and resignedly she knew that the whole mission was going to be an awkward bitch at best. Their landing site was a warren of passageways that snaked under arching metal spars, and the sunlight flooded down in mockingly huge splotches.<p>

When the first geth dropship stampeded out of the sky, she ordered Grunt and Taylor to the right, into the gloom of what might have been a communications building. Garrus flanked her, and together they picked their way through sweeping shadows. The geth pressed on with typical, methodical determination, and two volleys of bullets and three well-thrown grenades knocked back the first wave. Another followed, and another, and when they were sparking, smoking shells on the ground, Shepard crouched down and let the tension bleed from her shoulders.

"Taylor? Check in."

"All good, Commander," he answered, almost immediately. "Orders?"

"Keep moving up. I don't want us bottlenecked in the sunlight if we get rushed, so flush them out as you go."

"Got it."

As carefully, she wove between high, flaking stone pillars, Garrus alongside her. She tasted sweat along her lips, and when the walkway lifted up, and up again into the deep shadows of the stone roofs above, she was silently grateful.

Twenty minutes of cautious approaching took them higher up and through another group of geth until they discovered the first dead quarian. Flung back against the far wall, legs splayed, and since blood still leaked through the quarian's smashed visor, she assumed it had been recent. Quietly, she motioned Garrus forward, and a quick search beneath the next archway showed them more, all of them slumped and dead and hands curled around silent weapons.

She tried to remember how many soldiers made up a quarian strike team, and shook her head. If Tali had any sense – and she _did_, Shepard _knew_ she did – then she would be holed up somewhere deeper in, barricaded from the geth and searing sunlight.

"Here," Garrus said, and knelt. He unhooked one of the quarian's radio units, passed it across.

Shepard flicked the unit on, and listened to the soft, insidious buzz of the static. "This is Commander Shepard of the _Normandy_. We're looking for Tali'Zorah vas Neema, and we have back-up."

She waited, eyes pinned on the far archway, and the darkness there, while Garrus checked behind them. In her hand, the radio unit crackled, and a tired, male voice said, "Shepard? Tali's old captain?"

"Yeah," she said. "You're with her?"

"Was_,_" came the rough, strained answer. "It's a mess in here, Shepard."

"Yeah," she said, in the same even tone. "What's your name?"

"Kal'Reegar, Migrant Fleet marines."

"Reegar," she said. "Right. Let's talk through how we're going to make this work."

* * *

><p>The sun swung overhead, and the blistering heat turned the empty patches between the archways blinding white. Shepard waited, crouched behind another overturned stone slab, and grinned when she heard the dull shaking thump of Taylor's demolition charges.<p>

"All done?"

"All done," Taylor echoed, his voice distorted over the distance. "You want us to come up to you?"

"No. Still crawling with geth up here. Get yourselves in and through and see what shape Reegar's in."

"And after?"

"Wait for us," she told him. "Unless I say otherwise, you keep yourselves down and wait."

"Will do, Commander."

An observatory, Reegar had said, an observatory buried deep within the old quarian ruins, and _he said he'd sent Tali in there_. Which was all well and good, but he had _also_ said there was a swarm of geth between him and the observatory.

Garrus nudged her. "You're getting that look."

She grinned. "Yeah. I'm doing this crazy thing called thinking."

"Dangerous, in my opinion."

"Yeah." She keyed up her omni-tool and when Reegar's ruins outline flared up, she noted the distances again. "We're two floors up from where we need to be. Here," she said, and spun the glowing outline. "We drop a floor down, and that wall backs up onto the observatory entrance."

"Still too high," he remarked.

"Spoil my fun. Reegar said the place is full of empty windows and lots of pretty archways."

"And geth."

"Geth we can avoid," she told him, and smiled when she saw his eyes narrow slightly.

"I'll take the geth, thank you very much."

"Time's wasting, Vakarian," she said, and uncoiled to her feet.

"I'm not jumping off anything high again."

She ignored him and edged her way out onto the walkway again. The lancing fall of the sunlight was still painfully bright. She skirted through the pooling shadows, and each time she chose the shortcut option and just bolted across open ground, her shields whined. Garrus kept pace beside her as they padded their way down the slope. On the far side of the corner, six geth rushed them, and Shepard's omni-tool flicked out a warning of more movement, approaching up the walkway, and far too fast. Two ragged bursts of fire took down the closest geth, and when the one behind slowed a little, she checked her aim and sent it to its knees. Garrus' shot whipped past her shoulder, and a third geth's head exploded into sparks.

The walkway ran down to a high wall before turning and dropping into a steeper slope below. Open empty spaces that might have once been windows let the grey gloom through. Shepard noted the height and width and hoped suddenly that Reegar and his map had been right. With her back pressed against the side of a pillar, she gauged the distance to the next geth as they strode on. They were closing too fast, _far too fucking fast_, and she could hear their backup as they marched up the walkway.

She shoved upright and her next volley sliced open one of the geth's shoulders. It swayed, and Garrus' next shot sent it sprawling.

"Hear that?" she said, clipped and terse.

"Yeah, we're making friends," Garrus answered.

She heard the ratcheting thunk as he reloaded. They had moments, she knew, a handful of moments, before the walkway was flooded with them.

_And Tali was waiting somewhere below them. _

"With me," she said, and pushed out and away from the pillar. "_Right_ behind me, Garrus."

Without pausing to glance behind, she lined up another shot on the closest geth, fired until it fell. The whipcrack sound of his heavy sniper rounds just behind her made her flinch. Another geth toppled on her left. She darted between another two. With practiced ease, she swung her rifle up over her shoulder and into its harness. For half an instant she paused, and when Garrus' shadow slanted across her, she pushed on faster until they were both running flat-out.

The geth were following and she knew it and she could hear it, the rattle of gunfire too close to her heels.

"That one," she said, between gasped-out breaths, and jerked her chin at the nearest opening.

Somewhere behind, another round bit against the stone. "Too high," Garrus snarled back.

"Like Ilos," she retorted.

"_No_."

"Arms around me, you first," she ground out.

The window loomed, and she grabbed at his arm and spun him. Garrus growled and enveloped her in his arms, hoisting her hard against his chest. In the same motion, he whirled. Shoulder-first, he pitched them both through. There was the awful sensation of the ground vanishing, and the shriek of air in her ears, and then the juddering thud when he hit first. The impact jolted through him, and her head snapped roughly against his shoulder.

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"That was higher than on the one on Ilos."

"Worked though, didn't it?"

"I don't know yet. I might have broken everything."

"Turian, you're made of granite." Shakily, she rolled herself off him. She straightened up, sliding her rifle free. "Taylor, you still alive?"

The comm unit crackled, and Taylor answered, "Yeah, Commander. We've got Reegar patched up."

"Good. We're coming in."

"See you soon, Commander."

The floor sloped down to another high set of doors, and past them, half-hidden behind a low stone wall, she saw Taylor and Grunt, and between them, the quarian marine. She noticed Taylor's furrowed frown and asked, "So what's the good news?"

"Colossus," the quarian marine answered.

"Lovely." She crouched, leaning the weight of her rifle across one knee. Almost absently, she ran her fingers along the edge of the magazine port. "Tali?"

"Smart enough to lock the doors on the far side," Reegar said. "But there's a fair few geth out there."

"And their big bad protective friend won't be helping matters any." She tugged off her helmet and raked one hand through her sweat-matter hair. "Alright. Reegar, you're staying here."

"I'm fine."

"You're shaking all over and I can see it from here," she told him firmly. "Sit there and wait for us."

"Commander," Taylor said, slowly. "The colossus?"

"Yeah, they fall over real prettily if you hit them hard enough. You'll stay with Grunt and follow me up. We go through them careful and steady. Once we start digging into its shields, that's what we focus on."

"It's got a repair protocol," Reegar said. "Curls itself up and fixes itself."

"Course it does," Shepard said, and could not quite suppress a wry smile. "Was that the bad news?"

* * *

><p>The colossus unfurled its long, gleaming limbs again, and its gun turrets swiveled and flashed crimson. Shepard pressed stiff shoulders back against the small stone alcove and swore again. This close to it, her ears were full of the roar of gunfire and the metallic shriek as it unfolded. She poised, her lips slick with sweat, as another missile blurred overhead and thumped full-force into the silver arches of the colossus' legs. Taylor and Grunt, she knew, holed up halfway down the walkway behind, and running the quarian's missile launcher dry.<p>

The colossus swayed, and she snarled at Taylor to fire again, _right now_, while it was wavering. Without waiting for his response, she flung herself out of cover. She heard the answering snap and crack as Garrus fired, and the geth that loomed up on her left crumpled. She spun, lifting her rifle and aiming up at the flickering head of another geth, this one huge and towering and moving snake-fast. Her first shot burrowed into its shoulder, and it slowed, metal feet scraping against the ground. She kept moving, and her shields absorbed the geth's follow-up shot. Another burst ripped the geth's head apart, and she vaulted past it as it fell.

Another missile pounded into the faltering colossus, and she knelt. She settled the rifle stock again her shoulder and fired, her finger pressing and relaxing on the trigger in vicious, timed bursts until the silvery panelling between the colossus' front legs gave way. The colossus staggered, and when another missile drove into its huge, trembling head, it tipped over.

"Taylor," she said.

"All here, all good," he answered.

"Bring Reegar up with you," she said. "Garrus?"

"Still going."

She waited, head tilted back against the warm stone, while they made their way through the debris and past the fallen sparking lumps that had been geth. She checked Reegar's suit and ignored his sighed-out complaints and after she was certain the others would walk away with bruises, she nodded.

"Through here, Reegar?"

He nodded, and gestured her on. "That was the plan."

The towering observatory doors swung open slowly, and Shepard found herself grinning when Tali stepped out of the gloom.

"Hey," Shepard said, quietly. "How have you been?"


	3. Old Friends

_As always, a very big thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Three: Old Friends**_

The shuttle curved away from the punishing brightness of Haestrom's daylight. Tali sat at the port window and her fingertips slid along the frame. Opposite her, Shepard ran a practiced eye over the slight gouge that tracked down the side of her rifle. She let her fingers travel beneath the trigger and along to the solid weight of the stock. She thought she could still feel the heat in it, the terrible heat that had pressed down on Haestrom like a vice.

"Thank you," Tali said, very quietly. She turned. "For waiting for the ship for Reegar."

Shepard nodded. "He'd taken a hell of a beating. You knew him well?"

"He's a friend," Tali said, in the same tone.

After the shuttle docked, Shepard walked Tali into Lawson's office and stood, teeth clenched, while both Cerberus operatives outlined the details of their contract. Taylor was gentler, and when it was over, Shepard spared him a small nod.

"Sorry," Shepard said, slightly awkwardly, after Lawson let them flee the white confines of her office. "My XO apparently takes her duties very seriously."

Softly, Tali laughed. "So I noticed."

"So. You want to see your quarters first or the engineering deck?"

"And how do you know I've agreed to stay?" Tali's head tilted. "And that shouldn't even be a question."

"I know it." Shepard smiled, and some of the weary tension in her shoulders eased. "This way, and you can gaze at the pretty wiring to your heart's content."

"Shepard." Tali caught her elbow. "Look. You need to know. On Haestrom, it all went wrong. I don't know what your Illusive Man thinks is going to come of having me here, but whatever we were doing on Haestrom, it went wrong."

"Yeah, it did. But that was because you got swamped by geth. Sometimes things just go wrong."

"Yes, but…"

"Did you want to see the engineering deck, or did you want me to point you in the direction of the escape pods now?"

Tali laughed. "Sure."

Shepard grinned, and motioned her to the stairs, and devoted much of the next hour to observing while the quarian inspected every inch of the main consoles in engineering, thoroughly grilled the tech staff, and spent far too long simply staring at the whirling white sphere of the drive core.

"Pretty, isn't it," Shepard said much later, when they were both standing in the grey empty space of her cabin. "And sit down."

Tali complied, curling herself in the biggest armchair. "It is. It's also Cerberus."

"I know. I don't like either." She flopped onto the couch opposite. She looked at the quarian and saw the rigid arch of her shoulders, the way her fingers plucked at the chair arms. "You want to talk about it?"

"About what?"

"Haestrom."

"I told you," Tali said, and shrugged.

"You told me some shit about solar energy. And some about getting things wrong. And some more about ruins. What about you?"

Tali's head lifted. "Nearly all of them died."

"Yeah," Shepard said, gently.

"We thought we knew what we were doing."

_And she didn't_, Shepard thought, without much censure. _She'd rushed in and made decisions too quickly and her men had died because they'd done the work they'd been there for. _

"Is it going to happen, Shepard? This going after the Collectors?"

"I don't know," she answered slowly. "We get it done fast enough and well enough, then we might."

"That's reassuring," Tali said, and this time, her voice was warmer.

"I can give you a really inspiring speech, if you want."

"No, thank you. Not yet."

"Are you going to be okay?"

Tali's head jerked up again, and the lights swam across her thick half-transparent visor. "Yes. Yes, I think so. Thank you, Shepard."

"Look," she said, and leaned forward. "I know they're Cerberus. But the kids in engineering are alright. So are most of them. Give it some time."

"Yes, I will." Tali's fingers tapped against her knees, and she added, "And you got Garrus."

"Yeah," Shepard said, and grinned. "If you want to go annoy him, he spends most of his time tinkering with stuff in the main battery."

"Shepard."

"Yeah, I know. I'm overdoing it. I'm just, well. Glad to see you."

"Yes." Tali nodded, and when she stood, she touched Shepard's shoulder. "I'm glad to see you too."

After the quarian left her to the emptiness and the blue ripples of the aquarium, Shepard stared up at the ceiling. She remembered another ship and another time and other people, filling the silences.

_"You're up early," Alenko said idly. _

_ "Or late." She kicked the chair away from the table and sat. She leaned her chin into her hands. "I've been staring at everything Anderson gave me about Therum. And yeah, I know it's meant to be a simple pick-up. Go find the archaeologist, bring her back, interrogate her about her thousand-year-old mother, and assume she'll want to be friendly."_

_ "They're rarely simple," he said in that same patient, slightly dry tone. "Even the pick-up missions."_

_ "It's happened fast. Very fast." _

_ "Marine one day and Spectre the next?"_

_ "Oh, that's funny." She grinned at him through steepled fingers. "But yeah. You're right." _

_ "How's our newest recruit settling in?"_

_ "The quarian? Newest waif and stray." She straightened up and groaned when something in her shoulder twinged. "Yeah. She's all over the engine room. I swear I saw her eyes light up."_

_ His mouth curved into a slow smile. "Sure you did." _

_ She shrugged. "She's settling in. They all are. Hell, _we _are." _

_ "I hear that." _

_ "Tell you something, though, Alenko. She seems like a good kid, but she makes me feel old." _

_ He laughed then, the sound of it free-ringing and suddenly wonderful in the stifling early morning quiet of the mess hall. _

Shepard glared up at the pale tiles above and when they remained unhelpfully spotless, she shoved back up to her feet. Therum had been chaotic and hectic and she remembered the elation as she had cleared the last of the surface ramps and realised that Joker _had_ whipped the _Normandy_ down in time, and that they might just make it out breathing.

_Breathing and with her armour all scorched and a stupid grin on her face. _

She kicked her boots off and tried to rest, but her skin was all prickling with the memory of Haestrom and the hammer-on-anvil thump of the heat. Twenty-five minutes later she admitted defeat and the shift change took her through the CIC and up to the cockpit, and after she glanced over the course direction charts, she left Joker communing with a mug of temptingly hot coffee. She discovered Garrus in his quarters, his long-fingered hands flickering over the disassembled pieces of his sniper rifle.

"We have an armoury for that, you know."

"Yeah, like you don't do exactly the same thing," he responded, and reached for the weapon oil.

"Yeah. True." The same rifle he had hidden himself behind for all those hours on Omega, and before, and she understood.

He folded an oil-coated cloth over a small brush, and with slow, methodical strokes, pushed it into the barrel. "Tali's okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "Well, she will be. Got herself shaken up on Haestrom."

"Happens to us all."

"Yeah." She watched the unhurried, elegant motion of his hands for another long moment. "Nicely done down there."

"Just another day at work, Commander."

"Yeah, but we get to blow shit up. Mind if I sit down?"

Without looking up, he nodded. She chose the smaller chair and slouched back in it, and quietly, she regarded him while he finished with the gleaming pieces of the rifle. He started on the black and blue parts of his armour next, and the silence pooled between them.

"_Hey. Officer Vakarian."_

_ Garrus turned, his teeth flashing in a strange, not-quite-there grin. "Shepard. Fancy seeing you here."_

_ She returned the smile. "I've got two days, Garrus. Want to go for drinks later?"_

_ "Sure."_

_ She fell easily into step alongside him. "You going to be okay here?"_

_ "This is my territory, Shepard." Garrus shrugged. "Besides, there's a lot to do. Nearly half of C-Sec got wiped out. Others have retired. There's a lot of restructuring to do."_

_ She paused, looked up into his face. "You're sure this is what you want?"_

_ "Yeah. I think so." He sighed. "I think so."_

_ "Going to miss you, turian." _

_ He laughed. "You'll be too busy shooting geth to miss me." _

_ "Every time I get one with a single shot, I'll think of you."_

_ "You're not that good." He nudged her gently. "I'll see you tonight, Shepard. There's a big stack of paperwork with my name on it just waiting for me."_

_ "_Sure_ you don't want to come shoot geth with me?"_

_ He groaned. "Don't tempt me."_

_The false Citadel nighttime had rolled around slowly, and then it had been Kaidan and Garrus and Joker and herself, taking over the corner table in some dingy bar on some smoky ward that she was convinced only the turian had ever heard of._

She had paid for it the next day, she remembered. There were vague memories of brightly-coloured shots and Joker howling with laughter and Kaidan clasping her face between his hands and kissing her, messy and lingering and wonderful.

And two days later, she had shaken Garrus' hand and lightly punched his shoulder and told him he was up for the first round next time.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Want some help?"

His hands froze over the shining blue pieces of his greaves. "Yeah," he said, softer. "Sure."

Wordlessly, she moved, shoving herself out of the chair and across the tiny square of the floor. Cross-legged, she sat beside him and reached for another ragged handful of cloth and the oil. She scooped up his left bracer and saw the slight, pitted indentations of old bullet impacts.

"Better be up to my exacting standards, Shepard," Garrus said, and she heard the smile in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah." Sidelong, she shot him a grin. "Whining turian."

* * *

><p>Shepard dreamed of cramped quarters and that old gear locker that had shrieked horribly whenever she opened it. She woke to sweat-dampened sheets and the lights she had forgotten to turn off.<p>

_Stupid_, she thought, while she waited for her heart to stop galloping.

_Stupid fucking dreams of old places. Places she hadn't seen for more than ten years. _

The stifling shared quarters on the first ship she had served on, and when she made herself concentrate, she could remember it. Narrow metal walkways and that damn staff sergeant who could never quite recall her name – _she'd been 'hey, kid' for months, _she remembered – and the food that all the rookies reckoned came already recycled before they had the dubious pleasure of it.

_She prowled across the cabin again and again. Twice she thumped the side of the aquarium, and watched as tiny bubbles fled up towards the surface. She hooked her fingers through her belt loops, strode across to the door again, and abandoned the last of her patience. _

_ "EDI?"_

_ "Commander?"_

_ "Tell Operative Lawson to meet me in the medbay. Now, and alone." _

_ "Of course, Commander."_

_ She stalked down to the medbay and when she asked Chakwas for the room, and maybe a handful of minutes in it, Chakwas only nodded slowly. _

_ "Thanks, Doc."_

_ "Shepard?" Chakwas paused at the door, her head tilting. "If there's anything you need, you know…"_

_ "Yeah, I know." _

_ Chakwas nodded again, and Shepard paced until Lawson glided through the door, each step measured and graceful. _

_ "You wanted to see me, Commander?"_

_ She turned, leaning her hip against the side of the desk. "Yeah, I did. A few questions. Questions I may not have thought of until now." _

_ "What do you need, Commander?" _

_ "Do I have all my memories?"_

_ Lawson's shoulders stiffened slightly. "Haven't we talked about this, Commander? You're _you_. Nothing's changed."_

_ "Sides from the extra wiring I'm carrying around under my skin."_

_ "The cybernetics were necessary. Crucial, even, to the speed of your recovery."_

_ "You see, that's where you lose me. You say, speed of my recovery. I say, that part where I woke up on an operating table and wondered why the fuck I wasn't dead. Still dead. Whichever." _

_ "I'm simply giving you the details as you ask," Lawson said, and her tone sharpened. _

_ "Yeah." Shepard pushed her fingers against her forehead. "Then give me the details about my memories. Do I have them all?"_

_ "As far as I'm aware," Lawson said. _

_ "As far as you're aware." _

_She wanted to laugh. She wanted to laugh and then maybe scream, and then demand just why the hell her dreams had been such a whirling mess. A mess of mixed-up thoughts that were half true and she wondered what might happen if she _tried_ to remember something and _couldn't.

_"Doctor Chakwas tells me you're progressing well, physically," Lawson said. Her hands lifted, elegant and slender, and pushed a dark wing of hair past her shoulder. _

_ "So I don't want to know what she's been saying about my brain, then?"_

_ "Commander, that's not what I meant."_

_ "I know." She stared down between her boots. She was not sure, now, why she had even bothered to corner Lawson. Not over this, not over something that the woman could doubtless not truly explain. She was Lawson's project, and so far successful, she supposed. "How long was I meant to be on that table?"_

_ "Commander?"_

_ "You woke me because they fucked with security. How much longer was I meant to be lying there?" _

_ The corners of Lawson's mouth tightened. She paused, and eventually, she said, "Until I was certain you were ready." _

Memories were funny things, Shepard thought. Funny creatures with claws that hooked into her in her sleep and did not quite let go even after she woke. She remembered sitting in her cabin, fifteen hours after leaving the Cerberus platform, and trying fiercely to remember _anything_ from before, from before the _Normandy _had shattered around her.

_Training, and the ships she'd grown up on, those awful mail vids her mother had sent, the pain after she'd broken her shoulder falling badly on a planetside training run. The day she'd met Anderson. The day she'd said that last goodbye to her father. _

_The Citadel and Saren and the Council and suddenly she was on her knees, her fingers digging into her temples and her heart racing and every breath coming like fire in her lungs. _

She rolled herself out of bed and automatically heaved her fatigues on. This time, she eschewed the mirror and the comb and simply raked her fingers through her short hair. In the mess hall, she found Garrus already there and hid her slight smile. She detoured long enough to pour herself a mug of coffee and joined him, sitting sideways on the bench beside him.

"How do you drink that so early?"

"This is _when_ you're supposed to drink it, my friend." She wrapped her hands around the mug. "You fancy a hop down to Ilium whenever Joker kicks this ship into gear and gets us there?"

"I find it fascinating that you always ask as if I have a choice," he retorted.

"Yeah, well. Stay here and be bored if you want."

"Didn't say that. What's on Ilium?"

She grinned. "An assassin and an asari Justicar, for our recruiting pleasure. Provided they both say yes, of course."

"Who could turn us down?"

"My thoughts exactly." She looked past the hulking curve of his shoulder, and her smile widened when she noticed Tali. She waited while the quarian ducked past two chattering crewmen. "Sleep alright?"

"Yes," Tali answered, and she sounded vaguely surprised. "Your ship's engines are still far too quiet, Shepard."

"Blame Cerberus."

"I will," Tali said, lightly. "I was hoping I'd find you in here. I was…can I ask you about some things?"

"Sure."

"I've gone over the information you sent to my quarters. Your team is interesting."

"She's still so diplomatic," Garrus muttered.

"Yeah," Shepard said, and sipped at the coffee until she winced. "Interesting."

"So," Tali said. "I was wondering how the Illusive Man has been choosing us."

"Wouldn't have a fucking clue," Shepard replied. She summoned another smile and added, "Looking for the crazy ones, I guess."

"That's not a compliment, Shepard."

"It could be." She stared down at the table, at the faint wet ring when she lifted the mug again.

"How did you do it?" Tali asked.

"Shot some people, ran around asking questions, got Garrus to intimidate other people."

Tali laughed. "Similar to the usual?"

"Yeah. I even got to pull him out of the fire, ass first."

"Oh? And who was holding the entire plaza until you waltzed in, huh?" Garrus clipped her shoulder lightly.

"Yeah, holding it so well that you _shot me_."

"There's a story there," Tali said. "There has to be."

"Yeah, and it's a story that involves me getting shot. Some people are impossible to rescue."

"And I didn't _know_ it was a rescue until you started shooting mercenaries in the back," Garrus responded. "And anyway, they were only concussive rounds."

"_Only_," she echoed. "Should've seen the bruises afterwards. Bigger than my hands."

_Bruises and the slow drip of her own blood down one arm and the red puffiness of the wound above it and the terrible knowledge of Garrus lying supine in the medbay. _

"Busy day, that one," Shepard said, quieter.

Busy with the roar of gunfire and sudden, brittle dread when the gunship had swung across the bridge again. She had _tried_ joking about it in the days after it, and so had he, and both of them had failed. The silences devoured words too quickly when they tried to make it a joke, just another story of just another day, another day dodging bullets and running until their feet hurt.

_A day when she'd thought he was going to die and he'd realised that she was still alive. _

"Hey," Garrus said, and she wondered how long he had been speaking. His voice was softer, and when she looked up, she saw how Tali's face was tilted towards her. "Worked out in the end, didn't it?"

"Yeah," she said, and slowly her smile returned. "Yeah, it did."


	4. Hunters

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Four – Hunters**_

The high towers of Nos Astra glittered. Shepard could see them, spear-straight and shining, whenever she made herself look past Liara's shoulder. _Liara_, she thought again, and dragged her gaze back to the asari's bright, welcoming smile.

"Your assassin contacted a woman named Seryna," Liara said mildly. She leaned forward, slender fingers clasped on the desk. "You can find her at the transport hub. I can send a request for her to wait for you, if you want."

"No, we'll head down straight away," Shepard said, blandly. "Thanks, Liara."

"I will send you all the information I have on your Justicar."

"Thank you." The silence tightened, and Shepard swung her legs out of the chair. She scrambled for something else to say, and muttered, "Alright, Vakarian. Let's go net ourselves an assassin."

"Shepard," Liara said, and her head lifted. "It was good to see you."

"Yeah." She nodded. "You too."

She waited until her heels were snapping hard against the polished corridor outside before she exhaled sharply. "Well," she said, and glanced up at Garrus. "_That_ was the strangest conversation I've had in a fair while."

"Yeah," he answered.

"I'm gone two years and Liara has _sources _now." Tiredly, she grinned. "Shouldn't she be out on a rock somewhere knee-deep in prehistoric pottery?"

"Yeah. She should." With easy, lithe strides, he matched her pace. "She was hiding something."

"You noticed, huh?"

"The corners of her eyes crinkle too much. And she doesn't always know what to do with her hands."

Shepard laughed. "You're such a cop sometimes."

"Just observant," he told her absently.

"There was something she didn't want to say. Which troubles me given that she was, you know, threatening to fry some poor bastard with _her mind_."

"Flay," he corrected her, and she heard the soft burr of amusement in his voice.

"Whichever."

_Strange_, she thought. Pieces of the past all up and walking and _talking_ at her, wearing an old friend's beautiful smile and soft voice. _Liara who had been all grace and shimmering blue biotics and nervous stammering except when she talked about her digsites and her books and the Protheans_.

Liara who had paced and paced while the _Normandy_ swung in towards Noveria, her hands twisting and coiling around each other.

"_Hey." Shepard reached out and caught her wrists, gently prying them apart. "Slow down. You're wearing a trench in the deck."_

_Liara swallowed. "I'm sorry."_

"_Don't be sorry. Sit down and talk to me. Or just talk." _

"_I have not seen Benezia for many years."_

"_And family reunions are tough enough without worrying about whether or not Mom is going to rip you apart with biotics, right?" _

"_That was a joke," Liara said. _

"_Yeah. A really bad one. Sorry."_

"_No, no." Abruptly, Liara sat. She clamped her fingers against the edge of the table. "Benezia is powerful."_

"_What if this _is_ some mistake? What if she _is_ trying to, I don't know. Subvert Saren, watch him."_

"_Shepard." Liara shook her head. Her eyelids trembled. "Do you think so?"_

"_I don't know." She kept her gaze on the other woman's face. She saw the awful, wrenching tension in the other woman's shoulders and hands and she understood. Liara would go to Noveria because she had to, and because there was no other way, and because she was needed. "I'll be with you." _

"Hey," Garrus said, and eased his pace a little. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Slowly, she nodded. "Come on. We should go drag Taylor and Zaeed out of the bar."

* * *

><p>The skycar darted between the surging lines of traffic. The asari, Seryna, coaxed the skycar past the knifing rise of six spires, her hands steady on the controls.<p>

"The Dantius Towers," Shepard said, musingly. She had both feet braced up against the front windshield, and idly, she looked at the saw-toothed skyline, all afire with the sparkle of lights and the coppery play of the setting sun. "No relation of Nassana Dantius, by any chance?"

The asari snorted. "How did you guess?"

"Oh, we ran into each other a few years back. Remember that one, Garrus?"

"Yeah. Was that when she commissioned us to rescue her sister, who'd been captured by slavers?"

"And it turned out," Shepard said, and grinned. "That the _slaver_ was the _sister_, and when we killed her, Nassana was far too happy. Trust issues, that family."

"So," Garrus said, and leaned forward so that his shoulder bumped the back of Shepard's seat. "I'm assuming Miss Dantius has pissed off someone too many times."

"A fair assumption. How much time d'you reckon the assassin's had in the towers, Seryna?"

"A few hours. She'll have the place locked down, though. You'll have to work your way through her men to get to him. _If_ he even gets that far."

"Didn't you say this guy was good?" Shepard lunged forward and yanked at the buckles on her boots, tugging them into place.

"He is." The asari gunned the engine again, and the skycar lurched. She wrestled it past the gleaming side of a white building, and beneath a towering arch. She nodded, and said, "Up there, Shepard."

"Pretty," Shepard remarked lazily, when she saw the elegant, glass-sided towers. Linked partway up by a narrow bridge, she noted, and the fading light of the sun licked across the mirror-bright windows.

"What are you thinking, Commander?" Taylor asked.

"I'm thinking," she said, and remembered the plans Seryna had called up for her, the lines and levels and twisting ducts of the dual tower complexes. _Under construction and not halfway finished, the asari had said, a maze without a guidebook and good luck finding an assassin in there, especially one who knows how to cling to the shadows. _

They needed a quick way up, Shepard knew, something swift and hopefully quiet, a way that would lead them close to the assassin's target.

"I'm thinking," she said again. "That bridge is looking pretty good."

* * *

><p>Shepard settled her shoulders against the side of the pillar and waited out the next deafening round of gunfire. Her elbow ached, and she could feel the stretching pull in her right calf. <em>From the stairs<em>, she remembered. The stairs that had twisted and turned up from the mezzanine below, sheeted on both sides with glass. The stairs she'd half fallen _up_ after twelve Eclipse shooters had broken cover and rushed them.

When the impatient half-quiet returned, she hissed, "Taylor, _now_. Massani, with him."

She heard their footsteps, and the crack of Garrus' rifle as he shot over and past them. She twisted upright and fired around the edge of the pillar until she mowed down the three mercenaries crouched just across from her. Cramped and grueling and _fucking annoying_, she thought, and she knew the only way across was to pick their path slowly and carefully and not let a single man through their guard.

"Here," Taylor snapped back, and she heard the scrape of his armour against the pillar.

Massani crouched beside him, his face set in a thunderous scowl. "Slow going, Commander."

"They'll rip us apart if we rush them." Shepard chanced another look and counted off five more men, edging their way down the narrow span of the bridge. "Garrus, whenever you're ready, we've got you."

"On my way."

Three measured bursts of fire took down the nearest two men, punching through their shields and sending them staggering back. Taylor threw a rippling wall of blue energy at the others, and when they toppled, Massani's viciously timed shots bit into them.

"So," Garrus said, as his shoulders thumped against the pillar beside her. "This bridge still looking good?"

"Yeah, yeah." She spared him a grin. "Bitch about it later. Let's move."

With the same predatory wariness, Shepard motioned them across the last stretch of the bridge. Slowly, she padded between the maze of pillars and broken glass and when another wave of mercenaries charged them, she flung herself hard against the wall. Taylor filled the gap with the blue surge of his biotics, and on her other side, Garrus sank to his knees and aimed. She was pushing away from the wall by the time his shot rang out, and when she fired, Massani flanked her.

"All done, Shepard," Massani said. "No one still breathing."

"Good. Garrus, is Miss Dantius still screaming at her guards?"

His fingers flicked rapidly over his omni-tool. "Sounds like it."

"Good. Seems our assassin's doing us some favours."

"We're doing him plenty," Garrus retorted.

"Maybe he'll be grateful." She rolled her shoulders and exhaled sharply, letting the stiff tension in her spine ease. "Let's keep radio silence. It's dark enough in here already without us shouting out our position to everyone. You ready?"

"Whenever you are."

Another twenty minutes crawled past while they wove their way higher. Long sloping walkways led up to landings bracketed on both sides by glass. The rising moonlight swam in the glass walls, and below, Nos Astra gleamed. Beneath the high curve of an archway, another mercenary troop waited, and Shepard and Massani fired in tandem, stripping away their shields. The last one fell, his head reduced to a smouldering lump, and Shepard held up one hand. Wordlessly, Taylor and Massani braced themselves either side of the archway. She waited, eyes on the last closed set of doors, while Garrus teased the lock open. His fingers flicked across the keypad again, and he nodded.

The doors whispered open, and she strode through, Garrus flanking her. Soft pools of orange light met her, and Nassana Dantius' beautiful face.

"_You_," the asari hissed. "Shepard. Really."

"Really me what?"

"My guards report an attack, and you happen to break in," the asari said, each word glacial. "A coincidence, then?"

"A coincidence that it's you," Shepard replied blandly. She glanced past the asari and counted the armed men behind her. "Though I have to say, given what some of your workers downstairs said, it's probably past time that _someone_ took a contract out on you."

"Someone," the asari said. "And you're adamant that you're not here to fulfill it?"

"If I was, don't you think I'd be firing my gun instead of just holding it?"

"Perhaps."

"Only perhaps?" Shepard grinned. "Nassana. Don't you trust me?"

Between the orange lights, the shadows moved. Shepard heard the faint click of something metallic, and then the asari's guards were spinning and aiming wildly up at the ceiling. Shepard's hand slid to her trigger, and a quick burst of gunfire swept out one of the guard's knees. Garrus followed up with another that knocked a second man off his feet.

As fast, the shape in the shadows glided between the last two guards. He was tall and lean and moved like smoke. He slammed an elbow into one guard's throat, and cupped hands at the back of the second one's neck and twisted until the man fell. His momentum carried him into the asari, and he spun her against him. Shepard saw the gleam of a pistol, and the silenced shot thumped into the asari's stomach.

"Well," Garrus muttered, and did not lower his rifle. "That was a hell of an entrance."

"Yeah," Shepard answered automatically. "You going to talk to us yet?"

Silently, the assassin lowered the asari to the ground. He folded her hands against each other, blue fingers curling lifelessly. He knelt, head bowed, and his lips moved soundlessly.

"You know," Shepard said, and stepped forward. "We did just slog up God knows how many flights of stairs to get up here. Feel free to start talking anytime now."

"Yes," the assassin answered. He uncoiled back up to his feet in one silken motion. "You proved a most interesting distraction for them. I am assuming this means you wish to speak to me?"

* * *

><p>Shepard slouched back on the bench and absently watched while Tali coaxed some stubborn coil of wiring with both hands. <em>Ilium<em>, she thought. Beautiful and opulent and seething just as badly as any another shithole in the galaxy. _And Liara knew the way its cesspit of a society worked, knew who to talk to and when and how much to charge and who to call upon for muscle. _

"Shepard?"

"Sorry, Tali. Did you say something?"

"You're sure you're alright?"

"Yeah. Just thinking. I should probably stop."

_The wind blew the snow in huge buffeting gusts against the high windows. Shepard pressed her gloved hand against the glass and stared out at the whirling whiteness. _

_ "Shepard," Garrus said, wryly. "You always bring us to the nicest places."_

_ "Don't you forget it." She turned, and when she saw Liara's face pinched into a frown, she caught the asari's wrist. "Hey. You okay?"_

_ "Yes." Hurriedly, Liara nodded. "I just…it is a long way to this peak. And the weather is terrible."_

_ And her mother was waiting for her, and Shepard could see the anxious fear in her face and in the rigid line of her shoulders. "We'll be fine," she said firmly. "The Mako handles well. Even when I drive it."_

_ Liara's mouth curved up into a slow smile. "Of course it does." _

_But outside, the snow and the wind battered and hammered at the Mako until they slowed it to a labouring crawl. The hairpin bends of the mountain road proved treacherous and banked high with snow, and by the time Shepard saw the lights of the Peak 15 research base, her fingers were stiff inside her gloves and her breath came short and shallow. _

And inside – _oh_, she remembered – inside had been the creatures that dropped out of the icy darkness, all teeth and wriggling limbs and ferociously fast.

"Thinking about what?" Tali asked, her back still turned.

"Noveria."

"Noveria was horrible."

"Yeah. Also cold."

"Garrus said you'd run into Liara today."

"Yeah." Shepard swung her feet onto the floor. She gazed at the slope of Tali's shoulders and added, "She's all grown up."

"That bothers you?"

"No." She sighed. "Yeah. It does, and I don't know why, which pisses me off even more. Two years – more – it's a long time." She scrubbed both hands through her hair. "So. You fixed my ship yet?"

"Getting there," Tali said archly.

Across the room, the door whooshed open, and when Garrus' hulking shape filled the frame, Shepard grinned. "Trouble?"

"Yeah, a whole contingent of Reapers."

"Nice. Is Krios alright?"

"Yeah. He's quiet. I think he'll be useful."

"You're that astute?"

"Sometimes," he shot back at her. "You're going back down tomorrow?"

"For the Justicar? Yeah. If you behave you can come along too."

He bared his teeth in a quick smile. "It'll be the highlight of my day, I'm sure."

"Like you've got anything better to do."

"Alright," Tali said, and leaned past the turian. She unhooked a wall panel, and firmly guided him out of the way. "You're both cluttering my deck."

"You know," Shepard said, as she pushed herself properly upright. "I'm almost certain you can't order me around."

"Down here I can," Tali said mildly.

"Fair enough," she answered, and smiled. "Come on, Vakarian. Let's leave the genius to her work."

* * *

><p>The treadmill pedals thudded and thunked in a steady, measured rhythm. Shepard wrapped sweat-slick palms around the handgrip and pushed on faster. The backs of her calf muscles tightened in response, and she gritted her teeth.<p>

"I think it's winning," Garrus remarked, from where he sat against the far wall.

"Not yet it isn't," she told him between hitching breaths. "Five more minutes."

Fifteen minutes later, she stumbled away from the treadmill. The grey sleeveless top she always worked out in was sticking to her shoulders, and her lips tasted of sweat and weariness and the possibility that she might sleep.

"Soundly defeated?"

"Yeah," she said, and grinned. She tugged two sparring pads from the wall rack and tossed them across to him. "Now it's your turn."

"Windows, bridges, getting the crap kicked out of me by my CO," Garrus muttered. Gracefully, he straightened up. He slid his hands through the straps, yanked them taut with his teeth. "Why do I put up with this?"

"Because deep down you think it's a fantastic way to spend the day." She eased her posture slightly, bracing her weight forward.

"Something like that." He shifted, raising his arms and tilting his palms slightly. "Anything special?"

"No," she answered, almost thoughtfully. "I think I just want to hit them."

He laughed, and when she saw his stance tighten, she launched herself. It was simple and methodical and each punch landed squarely until her shoulders ached. She slowed her pace, and when she circled him, he moved with her.

"So," she said, and drove another flurry of blows at him. "After we go get ourselves a Justicar, we can start working on the Collectors. Properly."

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," she said, and slammed her fist into the left pad. The soft, spongy material gave beneath her clenched fingers. "Our employer probably knows a little more than he's letting on."

"Yeah. Wait until your team is ready, and then drip-feed us some more handy honesty?"

"Yeah." She spun, and he matched her, lifting his hands to meet her next strike. "Yeah," she said again. "That's exactly what I think. I mean, I know he's got helpful little informers sidling all over the galaxy, but his timing is way too good."

"You're an investment," Garrus said mildly, and stepped back. "Can't have you getting dragged off by Collectors until everyone's ready."

Shepard glided into the space between them, and the follow-up blow was hard enough to make her wince. "Good point." She rolled her wrist, grimaced, and added, "I surrender."

"Good. My hands were getting numb."

She laughed, and it was half a tired gasp. Gracelessly, she sank onto the bench and caught the small towel he threw at her. She mopped at her face and the sides of her arms. "You know what it took me far too long to learn?"

"Reading? Counting?" He tilted his head back against the wall and added, "I might need some context here."

"Funny." She scrubbed the towel through her hair. "I think growing up I breathed more shipboard air than real air until I was eighteen. Then when I finished basic, it took a fair while before I was posted planetside anywhere. First combat assignment on the ground, my God. I thought I was crippled. It's not the same as being run ragged in a shipboard gym."

His blue eyes softened. "But it keeps you busy."

_Keeps you busy and focused on the next step, the next punch, the next twinging burn of exertion. _Small steps that could be counted, each repeated motion controlled. It was simpler, somehow, pared down to measured breaths and the bite of sweat at the corners of her eyes, and the knowledge that the only boundary was herself and how long and how far she might push herself. Anger and frustration and the insidious sting of fear, pushed back and held at bay and she knew that he did it as well, throwing himself into sparring and training. A ship was a strange place, she thought, sometimes too small and sometimes too big and sometimes _you just had to _do_ something_.

"Yeah," she said. "It does." She shifted, and realised that her shoulders were clammy, grey fabric pulling against her skin. "Reckon our next pick-up will be simple?"

"Simple like when you had to get a krogan in a tank onto the ship, or simple like when that bare-faced bastard of a prison warden decided to sell you?"

"You always see the good in things, don't you?" She smirked, and forced herself off the bench and upright.

"You know I do."

Shepard made it halfway across the floor, the towel slung over one shoulder, before she turned. "Hey, Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks," she said.

He paused, his hands folded over his belt, and his gaze on hers. "Yeah." His face shifted into that softer expression that she recognized as a smile, slightly uncertain. "I mean, you're welcome."

Shepard dug her fingertips into the towel. She was aware of the gulf of space between them, and the way the damp, sweat-spiked ends of her hair were pressing against her temples. "Good," she said, lightly. "I'll see you tomorrow."


	5. Breach

_As always, thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Five – Breach**_

Shepard crouched behind the low rise of the wall and silently concluded that she might despise Nos Astra. _Or_, she thought, _at least this labyrinth of a mercenary base that was currently awash with some scarlet gas that was sending her omni-tool insane as it tried to map out toxicity readings. _

She had security mechs and Eclipse soldiers ahead, flitting between the billowing red swathes of the gas, and when she listened, she heard the low distinctive rumble of a gunship's engines.

_All this_, she thought, _for a damn ship name. _

"Taylor, you'll take the mechs. Nice and quick."

"Got you, Commander."

"Krios, you and me on the Eclipse ladies," she shot over her shoulder.

Curled against the far wall, the assassin nodded. "On your order."

"Garrus?"

"No," he snarled back, from somewhere behind her. "Still can't see anything."

"Stay there."

She raised a hand, and when Taylor's whole frame flickered and buzzed blue, she nodded. She heaved herself over the wall and heard the soft, measured sound of the assassin as he trailed her. Moving quickly, too aware of the swirling red gas, she closed the distance to the next wall and flattened her shoulders against it. She spun, lifting her rifle in the same motion. As smoothly, she fired, and when the Eclipse soldiers whirled to face her, the assassin spun a blurring blue net between them.

Another volley sent the Eclipse fighters to their knees, and Shepard turned in time to see the last of the mechs topple, shedding smoke.

"Come join us, Garrus," Shepard called.

"Funny," he retorted.

She waited, eyes pinned on the treacherously shifting red clouds. "You alright?"

"Yeah," he said, as he emerged. "But they've got a gunship bouncing around through there."

"I know. I heard it. Taylor can throw missiles at it, and I'll go in with Krios."

"Shepard," he said.

"You'll stay back," she told him firmly. The memory of it floated between them, Omega and frantic, exhausted panic and she did not try to offer him useless words. She _couldn't_, because there was no real way to say it, not while the red gas was drifting and aimless and worrying.

"Alright," Garrus said, eventually. He settled the stock of his rifle against his shoulder. "Whatever you say."

She nodded, and when she led them through the next archway, the flooding sunlight and the roar of the gunship assailed them. Taylor fired quickly - as she knew he would – and she heard the ratcheting clank as he readied the missile launcher again. The first shot slammed hard into the gunship's hull, and it tipped sideways. The second sent it lurching further.

"Krios," Shepard called, and darted across the wide expanse of the floor.

She heard the whine as the assassin flung a thrumming tangle of energy. It crackled across the gunship's windshield, and when the glass rippled, she crouched and aimed. Another missile ploughed into the side of the gunship, and she followed the sloping target as it slewed sideways again. She fired, aiming through the jagged ruin of the windshield.

The gunship swung around, and she dived back. Her shoulders hit the wall, and she scrabbled sideways until she found the dip in the stone. The gunship fired, and the clamour of it filled her ears. The hail of heavy bullets scythed into the wall, slicing closer as the gunship turned slowly.

She shouted at Krios to find cover, and for Taylor to fire again, _right fucking now_. She could hear footsteps, and the rasping rhythm of her own breathing. Another missile thumped into the gunship, and smoke plumed up from the buckled-in panels of the hull. Somehow the gunship turned, laboriously and awkwardly, and she saw both barrels as they flared.

Shepard caught the edge of the wall and hauled herself over it. She hit the other side too hard, and swayed. Gunfire roared over her head, and she jerked back. Someone grabbed her arm, yanked her further, and she heard Garrus snap, "Stay _down_."

She complied, hunching over while the air above her head turned wild. Garrus wrapped his arms and legs around her, pinning her down and covering her body with his. She could smell metal and smoke and _him_, under it all.

"Shepard," he growled against the back of her neck. "Don't move."

Armoured, he was heavy, and his knee was digging against the back of her thigh, and her mouth was full of the taste of blood. She heard the whirr and hiss of a missile as it cleared the gunship's underbelly. Seconds later, it cracked hard into the wall and she gritted her teeth.

"Taylor," she shouted.

"Yeah," he responded, the word harried and rough. He said something else, almost drowned in static, and when he fired, the missile arced into the gunship's gaping windshield.

Pouring smoke, the gunship spiraled, and she heard the satisfying thump as it met the ground.

"Taylor?"

"Down and no one moving."

Garrus rolled off her, and when he leaned down, she let him drag her upright.

"You were meant to be somewhere over there," she said, to fill the silence. "Not right behind me. Not right under the fucking gunship."

"Yeah, next time I'll let you get torn apart, shall I?" he responded, and his voice was frayed.

"Wasn't in the plan," she said, quietly. "Garrus, I know how to hide."

"Yeah."

"Come on," she said, and licked at the bruised split at the corner of her mouth. "We're not done here yet."

* * *

><p>Two hours later, Shepard presented the asari Justicar with the name of the ship <em>Demeter<em>. Beneath her armour, she ached. She wondered if the throbbing pain in her shoulder warranted a trip to the medbay. The handful of Eclipse documents she passed over to the asari detective, Anaya, and afterwards, she ordered the others back to the ship. She walked beside the Justicar, and at the portside airlock, she said, "Operative Taylor will get you settled."

Too quickly, she vanished up to her cabin and kicked her armour off piece by piece. She peered over her shoulder at the dark bruises lower down and gingerly, she pressed her fingertips against the hot skin. As carefully, she heaved on clean fatigues and prowled over to the comm station at the desk. She keyed in the numbers for his quarters, and said, "Garrus? You pacing around like I am?"

"Yeah," he answered, eventually. "What's up?"

"You want to come up?"

"Shepard."

"Look," she said, and tried to push back the sudden uncertainty. "Just come up here, alright?"

"Alright."

Shepard waited, her fingers curling against her palms. When she heard his footsteps on the corridor side of the door, she dived into the chair, and called out, "Yeah, come in."

The doors slid open, and Garrus stepped across the threshold, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. "Hey," he said. "Thanks. For giving the detective the stuff. The evidence."

"Yeah. She can use it."

He nodded. He was hovering, she noticed, hovering as if he was unsure, so she motioned him closer. "Sit down," she told him genially. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said, far too fast. He slumped onto the couch and added, "Look. About today. I didn't think. I just saw it and I moved."

"I didn't know where you were," Shepard said, and heard her own voice sharpen. "You moved and you shouldn't've."

"Yeah."

"It would have been fine."

His head lifted. His hands tightened over his knees. "Fine," Garrus echoed, and shook his head.

She remembered his weight against her, the rasp of his breathing in her ear. _The sudden, wrenching awareness of the flat panic in his words. The jarring way his voice seemed to blur and roughen and ruin her name. _

She should just let him go, she knew, let him go and give them both some breathing space, so they could come back tomorrow and perhaps it would be back to normal. Or whatever the hell passed for normal right now, with them both pretending everything was the same, and with her spending her nights all soaked in sweat and waiting for the next day cycle of the ship.

"We don't deviate from mission parameters," she heard herself say.

Garrus snorted. "We deviate from mission parameters all the time, and you know it. You're angry because this time it was because of a gunship."

She snarled, "You _did_ it because it was a gunship."

His head snapped up, and she could see the sudden rigid fury in his shoulders and in his face. "You have _no idea_."

"Say it," Shepard said, and when her tone turned deliberately goading, she found that she no longer cared. She _was _angry, and her skin was buzzing with it. "Say whatever it is you need to say."

She wanted to lash out and she wanted him to respond so that she could shout away some of the awful coiling tension that had lodged in her gut again. She wanted to break the dreadful glass-edged _strangeness_ that had hung between them since he had woken up the medbay.

"I failed on Omega," Garrus said, and each word was ground out. "And you came sweeping in to save everything, just like always. Except it's different."

"I _know_ it's different."

"What was it you said to me? _Got a new employer. Not the best, but they hand out pretty weapons. _And that was all."

"Oh, I don't know." She shot him a venomous grin. "I think I told you I'd been sewn back together, as well."

"Shepard, it was _two years_."

"Yeah," she said, bitterly. "Two years, Garrus. But it wasn't, not for me, and that's why it's so hard."

"So hard? I went to your _funeral_. I _stood_ there at your _funeral_ and watched it all. I was there the whole time and so was Alenko and Councilor Anderson and," he said, and stopped. "So many people were there. They all talked about you. And I had to sit there and watch it all."

"You had to watch it." She laughed, harshly, and shoved herself out of the chair. She quartered the floor again, and watched the bright swirl of the lights across the curve of the aquarium. "You know what I had to do? I fought and kicked and fucking writhed around until I couldn't breathe anymore, and then I fucking woke up again. It was two years and I didn't even feel it go past. _Two years_."

"It wasn't any easier for any of us," he snapped, and she heard the clipped rage in his voice.

"No?" Part of her knew she had to stop, had to ease it down, had to order him out of the cabin before she said something worse. "My heart bleeds for you. You were still alive. You were still alive, and when I came back, I didn't know where anyone was. Everyone had gone."

"What were we supposed to do? We didn't know you weren't dead. Properly dead."

"Fuck you. You went off to Omega to get yourself lost. How was I supposed to…" Shepard swallowed against the sudden treacherous thickness in her throat. "You have no idea what it was like. _No idea._"

"Of course I don't," Garrus retorted. "How can I? I wasn't there."

"Maybe you should have been."

The words lurched between them, vicious and spat out, and Shepard saw the slight way his shoulders slackened.

_Too far_, she thought, and ached. _Far too far and far too unfair and oh _God_ she'd hurt him. _

She'd played at blaming herself, the Collectors, _Joker_, even the fucking ship itself. But she had been the one standing there when the floor buckled and gave way to the black sweep of emptiness beneath, and _she_ had been the one who had bundled Joker into the escape pod and jumped too far back when some huge piece of debris had come crashing down.

She had tried to bury it, the memory of it, the memory of how it had felt, her throat constricting and her arms and legs flailing uselessly.

_She'd buried it behind the new _Normandy_ and the Collectors and the way she'd been hurtling from system to system and jumping to tick off boxes on her new employer's list. She'd buried it behind taking herself off to Aeia and Zorya and Pragia and the Citadel and chasing down missing Cerberus operatives, as if she was some kind of greedy mercenary. _

And then Hackett had fired off a note, so blandly worded, that the pieces of her ship had been found.

"Commander," Garrus said, and his coldly modulated voice broke her thoughts apart. "Permission to leave?"

"Permission granted," Shepard answered, because there was little else she could say, not now, not while he had been looking at her through those fierce blue eyes.

She watched the grey door slide shut on his heels, and wordlessly, she curled herself into the chair and waited out the false night of the ship until her eyes were gritty and her head was heavy with the memories.

* * *

><p><em>The bridge across what had once been Kokomo Plaza was pitted and streaked with laser-burn. Chunks missing from the high concrete pillars, and the air smelled metallic and old. Shepard cleared the barricade, and the skin between her shoulders tightened. She felt on display and figured that she might as well have had a target painted on her forehead. She glanced across the bridge, saw high columns and an open second storey area that would probably have been glassed in, a long time ago. Now, the metal and concrete framework gaped, and she noted at least half a dozen decent vantage points. <em>

_ Ahead, the infiltration team crept forward. Already halfway across, and missing three men; they lay sprawled behind, their skulls shattered. Another round rang out, ear-splittingly close, and another man toppled. _

He's good_, Shepard thought. _He'd better not be too good_. _

_ She nodded to Taylor. Raised her rifle, and aimed squarely at the back of the nearest mercenary's neck. The rattle and burst of gunfire seemed too loud, but she could only hope that the Eclipse team were still suiting up behind the barricade. _

_ Blue light whipped past her, and another man dropped, yanked to his knees. A shot from Lawson opened his forehead. On her other side, Taylor followed up with another surging biotic charge. This time, the energy rippled out, swept three more men to their knees. Shepard fired, gritting her teeth when she aimed for the back of their knees. _

_ Another shot cracked out, and something heavy and solid slammed into her shoulder, forcing her back. _

_ She recognized the dull bruising pain of concussive rounds, and bizarrely, felt close to elated. Whoever Archangel might be, he was smart enough to realise what they were doing, and shrewd enough to conclude that they might prove helpful. _

_A sprint took her close to the columns, and the last three men. Two were crouched around an explosives pack, and the third whirled. Lawson glided past Shepard, blue light hissing out from her hands. The man fell, fingers clawing at his throat. The other two spun, the first calling out a warning. Shepard hurtled past the column and rammed the butt of her rifle across the nearest man's temple. He toppled, slowly, and the second shrieked. Two bullets bit into his shoulder, ripping him backwards. Another round shattered his jaw. _

_ Shepard pelted past them. She called out a quick order to Taylor to check the abandoned explosives and kept moving, up the stairs that curled around to the second floor. Still running, she settled her gun against her shoulder. _

_She had maybe seconds before Archangel might count her a threat regardless, and she had no wish to meet the business end of his sniper rifle. _

_ "Archangel?" She cleared the stairs. "Don't shoot, we're…"_

_ The words in her throat died. _

_He was a turian. _

_ A turian who was kneeling behind the rough edge of the wall, rifle balanced between gloved hands. And when he fired, the elegant, effortless way he sank the weapon back against his shoulder made her chest ache. _

_ "Archangel?"_

_ The turian sighted down the rifle again, and fired. He turned, and one long-fingered hand lifted to the catch on his helmet, and when he tugged it off, she felt the breath stop in her lungs. _

_ "Shepard," the turian said, and there was a thick, unreadable note in his voice. "I thought you were dead."_

_ She fought to find her own voice. "Garrus," she managed, stupidly, half-choked. "Garrus…what are you doing here?"_

Shepard glowered down at the glowing datapad. Ferris Fields and some other backwater colony plucked clean, and she _knew_ she should care – _hell, she did care, she cared enough that she wouldn't mind introducing a Collector's face to her fist_ _first and her rifle second _– but she could do little for them from here, the people who doubtless would have been ferreted away on the ship, enclosed in those coffin-shaped pods. She needed to be _doing_, not thinking, and she supposed that now she had an asari currently two decks down, she could call them all together and start talking through how to turn a research-and-recon into an offensive.

Except the Collectors came and went as if they flitted through space like smoke, and Shepard was damned if she was going to be made to turn another human colony into live bait.

She swung her feet off the desk. Her hand hovered over the comm button, but she knew that Garrus was as stubborn as she was, even now, even after it all. Instead, Shepard keyed in the code for Lawson's office, and when the woman's glacial tones answered, she asked, "Samara all settled in?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Good. I want everyone together. Today, when the daytime cycle starts."

"Anything else, Commander?"

"No. Thank you, Lawson."

She spun away from the desk. Quietly deliberate, she changed into cleaner fatigues and wondered if she should bother trying to sleep through the last hour or so. She lingered on top of the sheets for a while before reaching for her book again, but even when she glared at the pages, the letters seemed to curl and shift away from her.

_Garrus hung between them, and she was too aware of the blue blood that dripped inexorably from the gaping gashes in his armour. She looked down at his face, once, and wished that she had not. This close, she could smell burned skin and scorched metal, and she wondered how it was that he was still conscious at all. His blue eyes rolled, and more than once, his mouth moved. _

_"Don't talk," Shepard muttered. "Just hang on. Garrus? You hear me? Garrus? Hang on." _

_ On the other side of the plaza, past the barricades, they found the abandoned Blue Suns transport. Lawson swung into the driver's seat while Taylor helped Shepard lay Garrus across in the back. His breathing came shallow and wet and uneven, and the medi-gel Taylor pressed against the smoking, awful wound on his face seemed to have little effect. _

_ "Joker," Shepard hissed into her comm. "Joker? You copy?"_

_ "Yeah," he said, eventually. "What happened?"_

_ "I need the medbay ready," she answered, in that iron-hard tone she just knew he would recognize. _

_ "On it already. Operative Lawson's message came through."_

_ "Yeah." Vaguely, she remembered shouting for Lawson to tell them to be ready, _right now_, because they had an injury, and a bad one, and there was too fucking little she could do about it in the field. "Joker?"_

_ "Commander?"_

_ She looked down at the turian for a long moment, at the blue blood threading between his teeth. "I found Garrus." _


	6. Memories

_As always, a very big thank-you to everyone who's reviewing or has this story on alerts and favourites. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Six – Memories**_

_Garrus Vakarian lifted the sniper rifle to his shoulder again, sighted, and fired. The recoil shook him too severely, and he knew again that exhaustion was looming. Even braced against his armour, the rifle seemed unwarrantedly heavy. His visor was spilling out distances and markers and the slightest changes in air consistency, and still, the shot clipped past, messy and ragged and taking off about a quarter of his target's head. _

_ The basement level door locks needed checking, but the last time he had dared venture away from his eyrie, he had fled back under a hail of gunfire, and four krogan had nearly stormed the stairs. _

_ He wondered again what he was doing here, but he knew the answer, and it never changed, no matter how many shots he wasted on the bastards who kept slinking across the bridge below. _

_ Betrayal. _

_ The word sounded hollow, even inside his own head. He had come here – to Omega, of all places – to try and make some kind of difference, and for a while, it had worked. Then he had trusted, stupidly, and that trust had seen him hung out to dry and left for every mercenary with a grudge on the station. _Still_, some terrible thought prodded, _least you're still alive for them to hold a grudge against_. _

_ Not like the others. Not like his team. _

_ He ran a critical eye down the barrel of the rifle again. He had enough rounds and enough food for maybe four days, if they kept up the same tentative pace over the bridge. Maybe he could even outlast another slapdash attempt at breaking through and up the stairs._

Who was he kidding?_ He leaned his forehead against the cooling side of the rifle. He would be asleep on his feet within four hours, probably less, and he knew it. _

All that's going to wake you up is going to be a bullet in the back of the neck.

_ He had told no one that he was going to Omega. No one that he knew from his life before, in any case. The human councilor had been wrapped up in red tape, and no one in C-Sec had been inclined to demand an explanation for his resignation. _

_ And Shepard had been out with the _Normandy_, somewhere classified, and had never come back. _

_ Geth attack, they had told him. Geth attack that had torn the ship to pieces and left the survivors adrift in space before the Alliance deigned to send a rescue mission. _

_ She'd been out there with them, and the Alliance hadn't been able to pull her out of the void. _

_ Garrus growled low in his throat, shouldered the rifle again, and aimed. Two of them in Blue Suns armour, creeping forward with their heads down and guns held close. He waited a fraction of a second longer and fired twice, in rapid succession, taking them both off their feet. There was the usual scurrying and running behind them, along with more men shouting out orders. Garrus growled again, too weary to be even slightly amused by the frantic way they pelted, just out of range. _

_ How long had it been? He had let himself sleep, three days ago, he thought. Gunfire and footsteps had woken him, and he had thanked his stars that that particular bunch of mercs were stupid enough to fire wildly while stampeding across the bridge. Even groggy, he had picked them off cleanly. _

_ Shepard would've been proud. _

_ Garrus snarled. He lodged the rifle against his shoulder and peered through the scope. Nothing moved on the bridge, and for once, he wished it was crawling with them. Anything to take his mind off his treacherous, sliding thoughts. _

_ Shepard and Saren and Sidonis. _

_ Saren and Sidonis and Shepard. _

_ He swore aloud, and leaned the rifle against the pillar beside him. _

Saren's dead and Shepard's dead and Sidonis is somewhere.

_ He remembered the Citadel, clear as daylight, and how it had looked, all wreathed in flame and hazy with smoke and littered with the dead. The geth gunship floating amid the wreckage of the Presidium, and Shepard leading them down the service passageways and into a group of krogan. She'd barely flinched, he remembered, even though they'd left Williams behind on Virmire, even though there was no real way of knowing they'd ever make it off Ilos. _

_ He had shot geth that day until his hands ached. Standing between Wrex and Alenko, Liara and Tali behind them, and wondering if the whole Citadel was about to cave in and fall apart under his feet. _

_ Saren. _

_ He had wanted nothing more than to see Saren die, and when he did, courtesy of a bullet through his jaw from Shepard's gun, Garrus had felt nothing more than the sudden, flooding sensation of fury. _

_ Still, it had hardly stopped him from prowling up to Saren's fallen body and slamming his skull full of a whole round, just to make sure. _

_ Some exhausted, aching nerve in Garrus made him flinch upright. On reflex, he scooped up the rifle again. Mechanically, he snapped the scope up. He tried to ignore the deep, throbbing ache in his head and his joints, and almost succeeded. His gaze lit on four of them this time, moving faster than the last lot of willing sacrifices. _

So. All that means is you have to shoot faster.

_ Shooting was better than thinking, and much more likely to keep him awake. _

Until what?_ Some dreadful thought raged. _Until they break in and gut you, because you know they're not going to hand over the mercy of a quick death.

_ Garrus sighted and fired. The first mercenary sagged, spouting blood from the place where most of his head had been. Two followed, dropped untidily, and he felt the telltale twinge in his fingers again. He was too strung out, and there was no point worrying over things long done. _

_ Not while he could still shoot straight._

Garrus woke too quickly and waited while the familiar contours of his quarters swam into focus. While his heartbeat slowed down, he checked the door and the weapon rack, and the blue and white gleam of his armour. He lasted another few minutes, staring sidelong at the wall, before his skittering impatience won. He kicked his way out of bed and flicked on the overhead lights and, almost without thinking, made his way to the weapon rack. But he had cleaned and broken down the sniper rifle after they'd finished up with the Justicar, and the two pistols were still gleaming.

He turned away and quartered the small room again. He had an hour or so before he needed to be seen outside his quarters, and vaguely he wondered if he should try to sleep through it.

_No_, he thought. _All he'd see would be Omega and the _Normandy.

The _Normandy_ he hadn't been on when it had shattered. He had seen ships coming apart, and he knew how the flames would have raged through the fragments that had been walls and floors and reinforced glass and people. He knew how the air would have been ripped away, stolen by the sucking emptiness as the ship turned inside out.

He knew how Shepard would have had her helmet and her oxygen and how it would have ticked slowly away until she was left trying to breathe nothing and he had to stop thinking about that.

She was _here_, and that should matter more. _Surely_ that should matter more, but _she'd been dead and now she wasn't_.

Three days in the medbay, he remembered, three days that he'd spent flat on his back, half aware of Doctor Chakwas' glass-edged voice and gentle, cool fingers as she changed the dressing that swathed half his head. Three days while Shepard had taken herself back down to Omega to pick up a salarian, and three days while he'd had nothing to do but lie there and remember the shuddering sound of the gunship.

_He hesitated in front of the door, wondered why he had, and finally flicked the keypad. "Shepard?"_

_ "Yeah, hang on," she responded. _

_ Something close to relief washed through him. She sounded like herself. He waited until the door opened, and then she was beckoning him into the cabin. He was aware of pooling bright lights and the blue gleam of an aquarium, and the curved sweep of a desk. _

_ "Stop staring, Vakarian."_

_ "Yeah. It's big."_

_ "I know. I hate it."_

_ "Complaining."_

_ She laughed, unrestrained and genuine. "Yeah. I guess." She flung herself onto the couch and motioned him across the room. "Sit down and grab that bottle on your way. And the glasses if you're feeling pretentious."_

_ He laughed. "Nice."_

_ "You know it."_

_ "I do." The silence swallowed him then, deafening and consuming, and somehow he distracted himself by pouring the pale wine into the glasses. The type they both enjoyed, and he wondered why that made him ache. Nothing she'd never done before, after all, and how many times had he been with her and Alenko and Williams and Joker on the Citadel?_

_ "Hey, look," he said. _

_ "Yeah, I," she said, almost cutting across him. She laughed first, awkwardly. "Sorry," she muttered. Her hand darted out, latching onto the stem of the glass. _

_ "No, I…"_

_ "Say it."_

_ "I thought you were dead," he blurted. "And you're sitting here in front of me. Drinking with me."_

_ "You're the one who said it'd be just like old times."_

_ "Maybe I was in shock," he retorted. _

_ "Were you?"_

_ "Damn, Shepard. You never back down."_

_ "No."_

_ "Yes, I was shocked. Course I was. I just…"_

_ "What?"_

_ He bit back the sudden flare of anger. "You look different."_

_ She grinned, lopsidedly. "Course I do. I'm all sewn back together."_

_ "I don't mean that." He hunted for the right words and managed, "I mean your eyes. Your hair."_

_ "My hair." Shepard spluttered into a laugh. "Yeah, well. You'd be right. They let it grow. While I was on that table, they let it grow. Soon as I got off Freedom's Progress and onto the _Normandy_ again, I took to it with some scissors. And so you can see why I'm a soldier not a hairdresser."_

_Garrus looked at her then, properly looked at her. At the hollows in her cheeks and the shadows beneath her eyes, at the way her hands were hooked around the glass. She was Shepard and she _wasn't_ Shepard, and it made something in him twist. Her hair was as dark as it had always been, but now it fell ragged and short and uneven across her forehead and just brushed the tops of her strange curved ears. It had been gleaming and well-kept and almost shoulder-length the last time he had seen her, and unaccountably, it troubled him. _

_ "Are you going to keep it like that?"_

_ "You serious?"_

_ "Absolutely," Garrus said, and shot her a half-sincere glare. _

_ She laughed again, her shoulders shaking. "God, Garrus. I'm sorry. I'm just…I'm back from the dead, and you're whining about my hair? Goddamn insufferable turian."_

_ "Stubborn human." _

_ "Touché." She reached out, clinked her glass against his. "Missed you." _

_ "You too," he said, and finally he saw her face soften into a proper smile. "So. Tell me about your shiny new ship."_

_ "It's sleek and pretty. You given yourself a tour yet?"_

_ "Mostly. I got about two paces into the CIC before Operative Lawson interrogated me."_

_ "She didn't tie you to a table and shine a light in your eyes as well?"_

_ Garrus laughed. Beneath his tunic, his shoulders relaxed slightly. It was easier, he thought, easier now the words were flickering between them, almost as they always had. "Maybe she wanted to. I met Taylor in the armoury. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to weapons."_

_ "Yeah, he's a good man in a fight, as well."_

_ "What's our next step?"_

_ "Korlus."_

_ "Korlus is a rock. What's there?" he asked. _

_ "A krogan warlord," she told him, and grinned. "I'll send all the information I have down to your quarters. There isn't much at the moment. I have this sneaking suspicion the Illusive Man likes to keep me dancing."_

_ "Information feeding?"_

_ "Piece by piece to keep things interesting," she said, and tipped her glass up again. _

_ "Shepard," he said, deliberately drily. "We're going after the Collectors. Who needs it more interesting than that?" _

Garrus lunged for his boots and yanked them on. His thoughts were circling uselessly, and he supposed that he might as well make his way to the armoury or the mess hall or somewhere else where the air did not seem to press in on all sides, stifling.

When he reached the door, EDI flicked into life, blue and softly glowing. "Officer Vakarian?"

He almost laughed. He was fairly certain he had Shepard to blame for that, and on any other day, he might've been tempted to stop by her cabin and remind her that he'd worked damn hard for the privilege of being an untitled vigilante. "No title, EDI. Thank you."

"Very well," she answered, and he could've sworn she sounded primly affronted. "Commander Shepard has requested a meeting."

"Alright. The briefing room?"

"Yes."

"Thanks, EDI. I'll be right there."

* * *

><p>The white-walled briefing room was half-full by the time Garrus stepped over the threshold. He sat and leaned his crossed wrists on the table. He nodded to Taylor, and to Krios, where the assassin was perched near the far wall. Silently, he waited, and after fifteen slow minutes crawled past, and the others had all filed in, he wondered what might be keeping Shepard.<p>

She was obstinate as rock, but she was never late, especially when it meant her crew might be sitting around pointlessly.

_The overhead lights were far too bright, but even so, he needed to get closer to the mirror. He'd been over this with Chakwas twice now, but still, his fingers fumbled the edge of the bandage. Another few days with the heavier one, the doctor had said, and then they could switch up to something lighter. He'd nodded, and agreed to keep swabbing the astringent she gave him along the livid map of scars that extended beneath the bandages and right down to his mandible. _

_ The scars looked a little less livid, he thought, maybe a little less crimson. _

_ Carefully, he worked his fingers under the edge of the bandage and peeled it upwards slightly. He hated this part, feeling where the metal plate filled in the side of his head, knowing that there were cybernetics there, somewhere, buried. _

_ The door slid open, and he heard Shepard say, "Hey, Garrus?"_

_ Too fast, he spun away from the mirror. "Shepard," he managed. "Look, this…"_

_ "Oh, God. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. You didn't lock the door, so I thought you'd be unlikely to be doing anything more scandalous than lounging around." _

_ He gasped out a laugh. "This is scandalous?" _

_ "No," she said, softer. She crossed the threshold and paused, her dark eyes trained on his. "Want some help?"_

_ "No, I'm fine." _

_ "Garrus."_

_ "Chakwas keeps telling me I need to do it all by myself."_

_ "Yeah, well. I won't tell her if you don't." _

_ He buckled then, beneath the weight of her gaze and the way his fingers were shaking against the bandage. "Okay," he said, and it came out sounding almost relieved. _

_ "What do I need to do?"_

_ "Just get the bandage off my head so I can clean up." _

_ "You're so clinical," she told him archly. _

_ "Yeah, yeah," he responded, and part of him was glad for the distraction. _

_It was just another injury after all, and how many times had he sat somewhere and wrestled with medi-gel and patches, either for himself or for someone else? It came with the territory, he supposed, C-Sec and military and soldiering, but still, he flinched slightly when Shepard's fingers slipped under the bandage. _

_Very gently, she eased it away from the side of his face. She'd had to reach up to do it, and she was close enough that he could smell her, clean skin and crisp fatigues and whatever it was she'd slathered through her hair. _

_Shepard stepped away from him, and slowly, he cleaned the inflamed area where the metal plate met his skull, and the livid scars beneath. Afterwards, she passed him the fresh bandage he'd put beside the mirror, and wordlessly, she reached up again to hold it in place while he lined it up against the side of his head. _

"_Okay?" she asked, gently. _

"_Yeah. I'll get there." _

"_Yeah, I know." She paused, her forehead wrinkling as if she wanted to say something else. Instead, she shrugged. "We could paint it blue, if you want. The bandage. So it would match."_

"_No, thanks."_

"_You're boring."_

"_Completely." He turned away from the mirror, finally, and the punishing shape of his own reflection. "So, what did you want when you bludgeoned your way in here to disturb me?" _

"_Nice," she retorted. She scrubbed a hand through the unkempt dark cap of her hair. "I was wondering if you wanted to come track down a prison ship with me."_

"_This better not be the set-up for another cop joke, Shepard."_

"_For once it's not," she said, and grinned. _

"_This is for the biotic, yeah?"_

"_Yeah. Don't know much else. The notes were pretty thin on the ground, and even Lawson's boundless knowledge isn't helping much with this one." _

"_Well," Garrus said, and forced his tone as light as hers. "It's not like I had anything else planned." _

The doors opened again, and when Shepard prowled in, Garrus saw the steely set of her shoulders. She wasn't pleased, and before he could start wondering, she leaned her elbows on the table and said, "I'm sorry to hold you all up like this. I'd wanted a tediously long strategy meeting, but, as it turns out, fate has thrown us a chance to get to know our enemies a little better."

"Commander?" Taylor asked.

"I've been speaking with the Illusive Man, and he tells me that we have a Collector ship, dead in the water, and just waiting to be explored."

"A Collector ship?" Garrus echoed. He straightened up, and asked, "What happened to it?"

"A turian ship went up against it and whittled it down enough to knock out its primary power. I've already redirected our course, and we should see it sitting pretty and waiting for us soon enough." Firmly, Shepard added, "I know the timing's all wrong. I know we never expected to be able to get up close and personal with the Collectors again this soon. But it's not an opportunity we can let go past us."

Taylor nodded. "Orders?"

"Taylor, you're with me. Krios, Massani, you as well. I want this to be an infiltration. We're scouting this, not charging it." Shepard shoved away from the table. "Vakarian?"

Garrus' head snapped up. "Commander?"

"You want in on this one as well?"

For the smallest moment, he hesitated. He remembered the awful clinging silence in her cabin, and the way her voice had sharpened, and the way he'd started to give it right back to her, because they'd both been spoiling for some sort of a fight.

_But what else was he going to do in the suffocating quiet of his quarters, where there was nothing but pale walls and bright lights and too many memories? _

"Yeah," he said.

Something in her eyes softened, and she nodded. "Alright. Let's get ourselves geared up and go see what we can find."

Garrus stood, and by the time he made it to the door, the familiar knot of not-quite-tension had settled companionably in his belly. _Excitement_, he thought, _or something very close to it. _A step closer to the Collectors, and perhaps more knowledge, and just the simple opportunity to be doing something.

"Hey," Shepard said, softly, from somewhere just ahead of him. "Okay?"

He looked up, and when he met her gaze again, he nodded slowly. "Yeah," Garrus said. "I'll be right behind you."


	7. Fragments

_As always, a very big thank you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything. And reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Seven – Fragments**_

The air was dead. Above Shepard's helmet, the curving walls of the ship dripped. Beneath her boots, the rising metal walkways were couched on both sides by the strange damp softness of whatever the ship was truly made of. Some awful prodding thought suggested a warren, or a hive maybe, breathing in time with the slow viscous seep of whatever it was that made the walls glisten.

_Protheans_, Shepard thought. _They were fucking Protheans_, _and they always had been. _

Broken down and reshaped and made into something else. Made into tools, she thought. Thought and past stripped away and changed and with nothing left but the gleaming wet walls of this ship and wherever the hell it was they came from.

She remembered the dreams, filled with fire and the dragging, painful sensation of _endings_. Too many times she had dreamed it, and woken sweat-soaked and with her mouth tasting like ash.

"Hey, Commander," Joker said. "You getting this?"

"Shaky, but I can hear you." She paused and motioned for Garrus to halt beside her. Somewhere behind, the others' footsteps slowed. "What's up?"

"You're not going to believe this."

"This isn't the time to set me up for something dramatic," she said, mildly.

"It's the same ship, Commander."

"What?"

"Same damn ship. I swear. EDI matched them."

"Shit." Quickly, she took in the high archway further ahead, and the empty space beyond. "Well, nice to know someone in the galaxy's keeping tabs on me."

"So," Garrus said. "It's officially a trap now?"

"Yeah," she replied, and found herself smiling. "But didn't we know that already?"

"Well, yeah," he said, slightly wryly. "But sometimes it's just nice to know."

The corridors wound upwards and deeper into the ship, and the silence stayed unbroken. The walls ran wet and shining, and Shepard counted far too many pods, some of them upright, some closed and some gaping. Others lined the walls and spilled up onto the ceiling.

_How many people_, she wondered. _How many had already been shut inside them? _

She crossed up another walkway, Garrus on her heels, and the other three padding behind. Pale yellow light filled the archways above, sickly and hazing the high curves of the ship. The corridor lifted towards another console platform, as gleaming as the others that had jutted out of the ship walls in the lower levels.

"Okay," Shepard murmured. "Slowly and carefully."

"God," Taylor muttered. "Lots of pods. Lots of people."

She could hear wariness in his voice, and she guessed he was thinking the same. _Why the hell did they need so _many_? _"Speculate later, Taylor," she said evenly.

The console proved as lifeless as the unmoving air. Shepard waited, her shoulders tight, while EDI linked herself up with whatever programs lay dormant within it. _Protheans_, she thought again. Protheans darting between systems and wearing the jagged shapes of Collectors and it _all_ came back to the Reapers.

Beneath her feet, the deck shifted, rising and falling _ever so slightly_. "Feel that?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered. He settled the stock of his rifle against his shoulder. "Don't see anything yet though."

She opened her mouth to retort, and swore viciously when the console platform shuddered and twisted and _lifted_ out of the deck. "Stay down," she snapped. "All of us."

She pressed her shoulders against the base of the console and listened to the hum and whirr of the platform as it steadied. Her omni-tool flickered, spilling out bright points of light and proximity warnings. "Alright, we've made some friends. Push them back and do _not_ crowd yourselves. Not much room here and I don't know how many of them there are."

Briskly, she twisted half-upright and noted more platforms, gliding and elegant and stacked with Collectors. "Krios, Taylor, knock them off before they get here."

She heard the familiar rippling sound as they both hurled tangles of energy, and then she was pushing back up to her feet. Two bursts of weapon fire sent a Collector plummeting off the side of its platform. Another swept the feet out from a second, and Garrus' next shot tore its head off. Krios flung another burst of energy, and it sent one of the Collectors sprawling and clawing at the edge of the platform.

"Faster," Shepard snapped.

Barely any cover, she knew, and if they found themselves boxed in, chaotic could become deadly far too quickly.

On her other side, Massani fired, slow and steady and punishing, shredding through shields and biting into the armour beneath. She flanked him, and when the last Collector toppled, she exhaled slowly.

"Well," Garrus said. "That was lively."

"Yeah, yeah." She loosened her hold on her rifle. "Clear?"

"Clear," Massani answered. "Unless they know how to fly _after_ being shot."

"EDI? How's it going?"

"Shepard," EDI answered, her usually bland tones slightly softer. "The ship is powering up."

"So we need to move. What else?"

"The distress signal," EDI said.

"What about it?"

* * *

><p><em>Bastard<em>, Shepard thought, and uncoiled so that she could aim over the low wall. She fired, and another Collector collapsed. She spun back down to her knees and gritted her teeth when she heard the jarring thump of Massani's grenade as it whipped through the three Collectors hunched near the slope.

_Bastard sent them in _knowing_ they'd be caught and knowing they'd have to fight every step of the way out, and all for the handful of information EDI had mined from the console. _

Furiously, Shepard leaned over the wall again and squeezed the trigger. Another Collector crumpled, its hands flying to the gaping holes in its chest. She waited until Garrus fired three times in vicious, elegant succession before she vaulted over the wall. As brusquely, she led the others back through the twisting corridors of the ship.

At each sweeping corner, more Collectors rushed them, and Shepard found herself firing too long and too wildly and too unguardedly. It was stupid and it was inviting trouble but the anger was still simmering just beneath her skin and _fuck it_ _if the Collectors didn't topple over easily anyway. _

She hauled herself around the next corner. From somewhere behind, Garrus fired, whipcrack fast, and another Collector buckled at the knees. She heard Taylor calling to Krios to keep up the biotics, to keep pushing them back. She flattened herself against the wall and fired again. She was losing space too quickly, what with four more of the bastards charging up the incline in front of her and nothing but open ground behind.

One of the Collectors fired, and the shot slammed full-bore into her shoulder, throwing her back. Her shields buzzed out, and angrily she thought, _move_. She threw herself against the low rise that crossed the top of the incline and hunched over.

"Shields are down," she said tersely.

"Got two directly ahead," Garrus responded. "And one coming up on your left."

Another shot snapped out, and she heard the thump as one of the Collectors fell.

"That was lefty?" Shepard asked.

"Yeah. Stay down. I'll talk you up."

She had seconds, a handful of seconds, she knew, and she could hear it, the steady sound of their feet against the sloping deck.

"Straight ahead," Garrus said firmly. "Turn right and you'll get the other one. Quickly, Shepard."

She was on her feet as he spoke, and her first round reduced one of the Collector's heads to a dripping mess. She spun right, and her next shot sent the Collector's weapon lurching out of its hands. The follow-up tore it off its feet.

"All done," she said, and was almost surprised to hear the tired note in her own voice. "Right. Let's get ourselves out of here properly and go have a word with our employer."

* * *

><p>The soft orange glow filled the comm room. Under her armour, Shepard felt clammy and sticky, and she was sure the ache in her shoulder would flower into an impressive bruise. She half-listened as the Illusive Man said something about ability, and <em>just knowing<em> that she would have made it out of the scuppered Collector ship alive, and something else about the value of the data EDI should have gathered.

"Yeah," Shepard said. "You're still presupposing that I give a fuck."

"Shepard?"

"You didn't just send _me_ in to get roasted. You sent us all in. That's inexcusable."

"You're a good soldier," he said, his tone crisp and clinical. "Always have been. That's why we chose you."

"And good soldiers tend not to like being screwed over. If there's an issue, you tell me, and I deal with it. I can't send my team in if I have to worry that you know a hell of a lot more than you're letting on."

"Knowledge is important right now, Shepard," he said. "Knowledge and how we use that."

"Yeah, great. So next time you _know_ a distress signal isn't legitimate, you tell me. Unless you want your billion credit resurrection program wasted in some scrappy firefight somewhere."

"You're threatening me, Shepard?" He smiled, glass-edged and cold. "You're not that stupid."

"No? Try me," she spat out. "You want this to work, you've got to give me something here."

"From what EDI went through, we should be able to get a fix on the ship's movements. Where they went. Where they came from."

"That's called bait," Shepard said.

"And you'll take it, I'm sure," he said. "I'll have my people go through it, and we'll pass the results onto you as soon as possible."

"You do that," Shepard said, venomously. As furiously, she slammed a hand down on the console and the room flicked back to full brightness.

She stalked back up the steps and crossed through the CIC. She could hear them, her crew, chattering and muttering as they sat at their stations, and she hoped that none of them called out to her. At the elevator, her hand hovered over the control pad, and for a long, hesitant moment, she wrestled with herself.

_She needed to talk to him_, she knew. Despite the Collector ship, despite how he had fallen into line as efficiently as he ever had. 

_Because_ he had, some terrible thought prompted.

She could head up to her cabin and into the sanctuary of her shower and turn the water up to scalding. She would see him in the mess hall later and they could go right back to pretending, and then he would be right beside her again the next time they stepped off the ship, and it might almost be like it had been.

_You damn coward_, she thought, almost mildly.

Before her nerves could desert her, she thumped the control panel again. Outside his quarters, Shepard paused again, and wondered why. She knocked, and heard Garrus mumble something in response. The door slid open, and she waited until he motioned her inside.

"Hey," she said, quietly. The tang of weapon oil assailed her, and she noted the arranged pieces of his armour, already scrubbed and gleaming. "Good God, you're dutiful."

"Yeah, sometimes. Talk to the Illusive Man?"

"With exceptional class and dignity."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I didn't quite tell him to fuck himself backwards. So, yeah."

Garrus snorted. "Fair enough."

The silence stretched between them, and she tried to occupy herself with unfastening her gloves. Cool air hit her sweat-slicked skin. "Hey," she said. "You okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah. No. I'm sorry."

"No need," Garrus said.

"No, there is. I lashed out and I shouldn't've. Not without warning you at least. I guess. Not that warning you would've made it any better." The words seemed to come out in a relieved, juddering rush. "So, yeah. I'm really sorry. I was out of line."

"Shepard," he said, and his mouth shifted into a small smile. "I heard you the first time. Did you want to sit down?"

"When I could be standing around looking awkward instead?" She smiled then, properly, and flopped herself onto the end of the bed. She fumbled for the catches on her bracers and worked them off. She reached for the buckle just above her shoulder and winced.

"Here," Garrus said. "Let me."

"Yeah, I know," she muttered. "My own fault for stopping a round with my shoulder."

"Yeah, it is," he told her, slightly pointedly.

He leaned in, close enough that she could see how the livid edges of the scars met the hard angles of his face. Wordlessly, he unbuckled her shoulder covers and peeled them away from the fabric beneath. He smelled of soap and weapon oil, she noticed.

"Thanks," Shepard said, quietly.

He nodded, and shifted away from her slightly. She wrestled the chestpiece off next, and when she finished up with the leg pieces and the greaves, Garrus was staring at her, his head tilted.

"What?"

"You turn my quarters into a haven for your junk, and I'm deserting."

"And lose the chance the save the galaxy again?" She hoisted her feet off the floor and sat cross-legged. "So," she said, and forced her tone light. "Can we talk about it?"

"Yeah. If you want to."

"I, ah," she managed. "I think maybe we need to."

"Yeah," Garrus said, very softly. "Maybe we do."

"So where do we start? With the part where I died or the part where you head-butted a rocket?"

"I was at work," Garrus said, and his voice roughened. "I came home to a message from Anderson."

She said nothing. How many times, she wondered, had she come back shipboard somewhere to the same thing? The kind of bland, gently-worded request that _you just knew_ meant something was wrong, terribly wrong.

"I tidied up some paperwork and went over to his office and he told me you were dead."

"Garrus," she said, and heard the hitch in his breathing.

"He said you'd been after geth. He said the _Normandy_ was gone, and he said Alenko and Joker had made it."

Silently, Shepard moved so that she was leaning against the wall next to him. His hands were laced over his knees, and he was staring at the floor.

In the same flat tone, Garrus said, "I stayed for the funeral. And six weeks later I walked out of C-Sec."

"To Omega."

"Yeah. It's a good place to get lost in."

"When I got there," she said, hesitantly. "I won't lie to you. I didn't want to be there. I wanted to get in and get out and when we realised you were stuck on the other side of that fucking bridge, I didn't think we'd get you out in time." His listening silence lent her courage, and she said, "And then it was you. And then I saw that fucking gunship swinging in over the bridge and I thought I'd lost you."

"Shepard." His head turned, his gaze meeting hers. "Take more than a gunship to get rid of me."

"Yeah, well. I wasn't entirely sure. Especially since you bled all the way back to the medbay."

"I don't remember it," he said. "At all."

"Yeah, well. You got pretty blue blood all over the transport."

"I don't think I wanted to know that," Garrus muttered.

"Chakwas kicked me out of the medbay after about three minutes. Apparently I was distractingly twitchy."

Garrus laughed, slightly strained. "Terrible."

"Yeah. So I went and bullied Taylor about whether or not they knew who you were."

"What did he say?"

"He swore blind neither he nor Lawson knew." She shrugged. "I believed him. And then I went and jumped on the treadmill and then I polished every single weapon I could get my hands on. I swear to you, while Chakwas was putting your head back together, the entire armoury was gleaming."

"Shepard."

"I had to do _something_," she said, very quietly.

She shifted, and her shoulder brushed his. She gathered herself to move away, to give him some space, but he turned and leaned into her slightly. She stayed there, and slowly she became aware of his weight, and the rhythm of his breathing, and the warmth where her shoulder touched his.

"So," she said, and grinned lopsidedly. "The funeral. Was it a good service?"

"I'm not telling you," he protested. "That's far too strange."

"Nice readings? A pretty eulogy?"

"Could we stop talking about this now?"

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You know what I thought, when I woke up?"

"What?"

"There was no gap," Shepard said. She could see his hands, clasped in his lap, and the wiry, muscled shape of his arms. She wondered if she should lift her head so she could look up and into his face, but that would mean losing the wonderful, shocking feel of his shoulder. "It all went black, and then I opened my eyes again. I could breathe, but it still fucking hurt."

"On the station," he said, softly.

"Yeah. Everything was white. Clean. Lawson was talking at me. Trying to get me up. I got myself dressed and do you know what pissed me off the most?"

"What?"

"I couldn't buckle the boots on properly. I got through it all, and it hurt like a bitch. And I got to the boots and couldn't do it properly." Helplessly, she laughed. "It's irrational, I know."

"Completely," he remarked drily. "Could be worse. There was a moment – just _one_ moment – when I was on my side of the bridge and my aim was off."

"Just the one moment, huh?"

"Just the one."

"You're a bad liar."

"Yeah."

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"I need a shower. I stink."

He laughed, and she felt it as it shook through his frame. "Yeah," he said.

"Thanks," Shepard told him wryly. "I'm sure you're not supposed to agree even when it's true."

Slowly and reluctantly, she edged herself away from him. She scooped up the discarded pieces of her armour, and he helped her, balancing them against each other before pressing them into her arms.

"Hey, Garrus," she said.

"Yeah," he muttered, his voice tripping into hers.

"Training tomorrow?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'd like that. Empty day?"

"Yeah, I'm waiting on data from our employer."

His eyes glittered, and he said, "Going to be nice to him this time?"

"Maybe," she retorted. "I'm just hoping they can pull something out of EDI's downloads. Otherwise we're sitting here just waiting for the Collectors to move, and that's not something I want to do again."

"Shepard."

She paused, her shoulder nearly against the door. "Yeah?"

"We'll get there," Garrus said.

"You know that, do you?" she responded mildly.

"Yeah, and you can buy me a drink afterwards."

"Turian, we survive, and I'll buy you a whole bottle."

"Extravagant."

"Very," she told him. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"I'll see you tomorrow."


	8. Tempest

_A very big thank-you to everyone who's reviewing, following, and favourite-ing this story - your support is always so appreciated. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are almost welcome. _

_**Chapter Eight – Tempest**_

"You know," Garrus said, and reached for the small flashlight on the bench. "I do have my own work to be doing."

"Yes," Tali answered, half-muffled, from where she was crouched beneath the Hammerhead's battered flank. "But when this poor lump of metal left the hangar yesterday, it was fine. Now look at it."

"How is it my fault? I was shooting, not flying."

"Yes, but you're here."

"Slave-driver," Garrus muttered, and passed her the flashlight.

"I know. Here, come and hold this."

Obediently, he knelt and braced one of the panels up. He could see the black scorched rings that crossed the side and disappeared beneath the flat hull. "There was lava," he told her. "You should probably be thankful it didn't melt."

"Very funny."

Lava and steep, jagged terrain and fifteen hours spent darting between grey-walled complexes. The request had dropped in from the Illusive Man two days prior and Garrus hadn't quite been able to suppress the thought that the timing was too damn good. Another Cerberus errand run to keep them busy, and he almost wished their employer would stop calling them _requests_. Still, at least they'd barreled through the last complex in time to unhook the poor bastard who'd had his brain pried apart and turned into something that was half tech interface.

When Tali nodded, he lowered the panel again, propping it in place so that she could fasten it. He helped her with the other side of the transport next, plying apart a wiring cluster with both hands.

"How's Shepard?"

"Better," he answered without thinking. "Yeah. Better."

"Good." Deftly, Tali twisted the ends of the cluster apart. "Did you talk about Freedom's Progress?"

"A little."

"It was terrible. My squad," Tali said, and sighed. "I suppose I didn't think they'd be _that_ stupid. They bolted on ahead and wouldn't listen."

"You can't always fix stupid," Garrus replied. "Sometimes things go wrong."

Tali laughed, slightly bleakly. "That's your considered opinion?"

"Sometimes it's the only way of thinking through it."

"Yes," Tali said, softer. "I know what you mean."

Absently, he watched the nimble motion of her fingers as she patched the wiring cluster into place. "All done?"

"Yes, thank you."

He straightened up. "You're welcome."

* * *

><p>Three hours later, Garrus meandered towards his quarters. He'd go over some gear, he figured, before taking himself down to the mess hall for dinner. He keyed the door open and methodically, he worked his way across his armour, checking each gleaming piece out of habit. As briskly, he went over the weapon rack. When his stomach informed him he should probably be making tracks for the mess hall, he gave in and turned away from the silvery lines of the sniper rifle.<p>

His omni-tool flared, and carelessly, he pulled the message screen up.

He looked at it, scowled, and read it again.

_The Citadel_, he thought, and his mind went flat with anger.

Sidonis was on the Citadel.

_Slow down_, he thought. He needed to be sure, he needed to read the damn message again. He needed to ask for clarification, maybe a security cam shot, _evidence_. This was a rumour from an old contact and it probably couldn't be verified and he needed to calm his racing pulse and _think_.

He needed to be practical, needed to think his way through this, and he here was, standing stock-still with a stone in his gut and his thoughts swimming madly.

_If Sidonis was on the Citadel then he could be found. He could be found and he could be hunted down because Garrus knew every damn corridor and ward and small cramped space on the entire fucking station. _

Fingers shaking, he tapped out a brusque reply. Afterwards, he sat, his knees almost giving way beneath him. _Shepard_, he thought. He needed to tell her. _Tell her what? Tell her he'd gotten a scrap of a message that might lead to nothing? _

Besides, she was off ship, he knew, chasing some Cerberus beacon or transport or whatever it was. She'd told him, along with something flippant about being their whipping boy again, and he'd said something back.

He was damned if he could remember what it was.

"_Vakarian? Got some time?"_

"_Sidonis." He nodded, did not look up from the ammunition boxes, two of them upended and the contents strewn across the bench. "What is it?"_

"_I've got some good news."_

_This time, he did look up, into Sidonis' hesitant yellow eyes. "What kind of good news?"_

"_I've found you your contact."_

Except he had not, and all that waited for him after Sidonis' deal was a false lead and five heavily armed mercenaries, and the terrible awareness that _something_ had gone wrong.

_He rammed his shoulder against the door again, and again until it grated inward slightly. He wrestled himself through the gap and into the metallic stink of spilled blood and smoke. The floor was glossy beneath his feet and the smell hit him like a punch to the throat. _

_He had to check through them all and he didn't know who to start with so he knelt by the nearest – Mierin, it was Mierin, a fist-sized hole still welling at the back of his head – and fumbled at his collar. He called the others' names, but he couldn't hear any of them breathing. Breathing, or trying to move, or trying to claw their way upright like he _knew_ injured men did. _

_His throat felt filled with sand. Somehow he moved onto the next one – Erash, another ugly gunshot kill – and the next and the next. Their names fell from his mouth, hollow syllables. His hands scrambled along Sensat's collar, and when he found no pulse there either, he realised he was numb. Shaking slightly, and barely aware that he was pushing his tongue against the back of his teeth, his mouth all full of the scent of their deaths. _

_He touched Monteague's shoulder, and when he slipped his arm beneath Monteague's neck, he was rewarded with a faint, shuddering sigh. He grabbed at the medi-gel packets at his waist and used his teeth to wrench one open, and when he looked back down, Monteague's eyes were half-closed. Awkwardly, Garrus pulled his arm free and made himself check Monteague's throat and wrist, just to make sure. _

_He crouched beside Butler last, his shoulders trembling and his breathing coming in fast, uneven jerks. Gently, he cupped a hand beneath Butler's head and turned him. _

"_Garrus?"_

"_Yeah," he said, and swallowed. "I'm here." _

_Butler's chest was a blood-soaked ruin, and Garrus knew he wouldn't last. Not with the way he could see the white curves of bone showing through. Not with the way Butler's fingers were wrapping around his wrist, hard and punishing. He shifted, kneeling properly so that he could lift Butler's head against the side of his leg. He stayed like that, his hands holding Butler's head in place so that the man could look at him. _

_He wanted to say that he was sorry, that he should've been more careful, should've been sharper, smarter. He wanted to say that Sidonis was going to pay for every single death in this room. _

_Butler's mouth moved again, and Garrus held on until his body stopped shuddering. For too long, he knelt there with his hands tightening and loosening, his gaze on Butler's slack face.  
><em>

_When he stood – eventually, painfully – he was breathing too fast. _

_He needed to think. He needed to be out of this room and taking what was useful and getting himself _away_. _

_Somehow he stepped between the crumpled shapes that had been his squad and made it across to the gear lockers. He nearly dropped the first ammo pack, and the others he had to fight onto the slots along the sides of his weapon harness. He grabbed rations next, and more medi-gel packets, and the long-bladed combat knife Weaver had preferred. _

_He turned away from them, and somewhere between the door and the grey space of the corridor outside, he remembered that he had to explain it all. _

_But he wasn't sitting behind his desk at C-Sec and he didn't have the time to put together any of those dreadful condolences letters. Most of them had family off-station, and some of them had never mentioned any connections at all – hell, he'd been taciturn about his own – but he was the only one still breathing and it was his damn job. _

_Butler, he thought, and settled his rifle firmly against his shoulder. His hands were still trembling, but his heartrate had settled a little. _

_Butler was married, he was sure. Butler'd had a wife, and they'd put up with life in some grubby tenement on the station, neck-deep in the crap that was Omega because they were waiting to go home. _

"EDI?"

The response was almost instant, her blue sphere flicking on beside the door. "Yes, Garrus?"

"Shepard back yet?"

"No."

"Could you let me know when she gets in?"

"Of course, Garrus."

"Thanks."

The sphere winked out again, and he wondered if he'd imagined the slight softness in her voice.

Waiting, he thought. That was all he had left to do, and already he hated it. He'd been trained – well, he'd had it drummed into his skull – that discipline was the trick, calming jangled nerves with steady breathing and forcing out every prickling uncomfortable thought.

Stupid, he thought. He'd waited _days_ on that fucking bridge. He'd fled up to the boxed-in eyrie and when he'd been damn certain the bridge behind him was clear, he'd settled himself in and yanked up his omni-tool and set about the grim business of sending messages.

He'd started with Butler's wife.

* * *

><p>Garrus sat on the edge of the bed with his fingers wreathed together. He'd stopped counting minutes and ended up counting the unsteady thump of his own heartbeat instead. When EDI glowed into life again, he was on his feet before she could speak.<p>

"Commander Shepard is in her cabin," EDI said. "Shall I ask her to meet you?"

"No, thanks, EDI. I'll do it."

"Very well."

He paused, his hand hovering over his comm console. "Hey, Shepard?"

"Yeah?" she responded, almost immediately.

"I, ah," he said, and the words dried up in his throat. "Can you come down here?"

"On my way."

Garrus paced until she knocked at the door. "Shepard?"

"Yeah, it's me." She stepped over the threshold, pushing one hand through disheveled dark hair. Her head lifted, and her eyes found his, and she said, "What's wrong?"

"Wrong?" he echoed, stupidly.

"You look terrible."

"I thought you could never tell."

"You're stalling," she told him.

"I, ah," he said again. When she simply waited for him to speak, he muttered, "It's Sidonis."

Shepard's face hardened. "Go on."

"He's on the Citadel," he said, and somehow his voice stayed even. "An old acquaintance threw me a message. I wasn't expecting it."

"And you're sure it's him?"

"That's the first thing I thought. Well, almost the first thing. Yeah. Come here, I'll show you."

She curled herself beside him, cross-legged and with one elbow braced against her knee.

"First message," he said, and paused while her gaze jumped to his omni-tool screen. "After I worked myself into a foul mood, I messaged back for clarification."

He flicked the screen over to the next message, the rushed set of pictures. Shepard's eyes narrowed, and she said, "This is him?"

"Yeah."

"You're sure?" She shot him a sidelong grin, lopsided. "I mean, I can pick _you_ out of a crowd, but that's only because I know you."

He barked out a laugh. "Funny. Yeah. This is him."

"And Fade?" She gestured at the screen again. "What's that about?"

"Fade's a forger. Slippery bastard. Might even be more than one person." Garrus snapped the omni-tool off. It was easier, now, somehow, to talk about it, to hear the words as they floated between them. "He'll have given Sidonis a nice shiny new identity to walk around with." _Easier to say Sidonis' name_. "We tracked Fade into a dozen dead-ends," Garrus added. "Whoever he is, he's damn smart. Knows more about C-Sec than C-Sec internal affairs does."

"We'd have any chance at getting to him?"

"I say we try. I'm not at C-Sec anymore. You're still a Spectre. Tricky bastard he might be, but Fade is still Citadel through and through." He nudged her, and added, "You're okay with this?"

"And let you go off on your own if I say no?" She looked at him, her eyes dark and implacable. "Hell, Garrus. You need to do this, then we get it done."

"Thanks," he said, softly. "That means a lot, Shepard."

"Yeah, well. Keep it to yourself. Wouldn't do for people to know I've actually got a soul."

"Very funny."

"Tell me about Sidonis."

"He was a scout and a damn good shot. Calm under fire." Garrus heard the frayed note in his own voice. "Joined us because he said he was tired of seeing Omega sink even deeper into its own shit."

She said nothing, only turned towards him slightly, and the words spilled from his mouth, hurried and tripping over each other and aching.

"I should've noticed. He was damn twitchy that whole day. I should've _seen_ it. Should've said something. _Done_ something." He exhaled, slowly and raggedly. "Got back and he was gone and they were all dead. Dying. Eight of them already dead. I should've seen it. So. There it is. Thanks, Shepard."

"For what?"

"For not saying anything."

Very gently, she leaned her head against the side of his shoulder, and he wondered at the strange, curling warmth that eased through him.

"How do you keep going with it?"

"I don't know," Shepard answered. "Put the armour back on and go back out. And sometimes, we're lucky enough to be able to put an end to some things."

"Yeah," he said, and some of the tension emptied from him. "I guess sometimes we are."

"Do you know how you want to play this yet?"

"One shot, and then we get out of there very quickly," he responded.

"You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure." His voice roughened, and he added, "I know the Citadel. We can be in and out and C-Sec can chase themselves in circles."

"I know that," Shepard said. "I just want you to be sure."

"Yeah. I know."

"Okay," she said, and when she vaulted back onto the floor, she punched his shoulder lightly. "I'll go bully Joker into a course change. You figure out how you want this to go."

"Yeah. Shepard?"

She paused, one hand fanned out beside the door. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

She smiled over her shoulder. "I heard you the first time."

* * *

><p>Shepard sat with her hands wrapped around a mug and an empty breakfast tray beside her elbow. At the far end of the table, Jack growled something at Donnelly, and Shepard was vaguely aware of his laughing, amused response.<p>

_Closure_, she thought. Damn hard to get a hold of, for _anyone_, and she wondered why she felt uneasy.

Sure, sometimes fate upped and helped out, and she remembered with cold clarity that day on that dustball of a planet – Agebinium, she thought – when she had found herself lining up a shot on Elanos Haliat.

She had dreamed of Elysium that night, she recalled, that night and too many others afterwards. The sky all full of fire and her throat shredded raw while she screamed orders at shit-scared civilians and tried until she was exhausted to get them to move where she needed them.

And how after the pick-up and the debrief and the congratulations and the medal, Elysium had retreated somewhere in the back of her thoughts.

_Until that day, that small inconsequential day on that planet when she had squeezed the trigger until Haliat was nothing more than bleeding meat and Kaidan had grabbed her arm and wrenched her away. _

_ Putting down ghosts_, her old platoon sergeant had called it, during a groundside trek through steep-sided jungle hills. They'd all been tipsy and tired and dripping wet with the humidity and exhaustion, and the words had filled the damp evening air.

"Hey," Garrus said, from somewhere behind her.

"Hey yourself," she responded. She twisted around in her chair and saw that he was already in his armour, the soft light of his visor curving across his face. "Definitely dutiful."

"Funny."

Deliberately lazily, she pushed herself away from the table. She could feel the coiled tension in him, in the steely set of his shoulders, in the way his blue gaze was fierce and hawkish and unblinking. They had an hour, just, she guessed, until Joker danced the ship between the huge span of the Citadel's arms. "You want to talk plans?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered, clipped.

"Okay. My quarters?"

"Fine."

In her cabin, she fastened her armour on, piece by piece, reflexively yanking one of the buckles tighter. "Talk to me, Garrus."

"You and me. Just you and me. Is that okay?"

"If that's what you want. If it is, then we take it as fucking slow as we need to. I know the Citadel is your turf, but I don't want to get swamped."

"Yeah," he said. He quartered the floor again and glared at the empty blue glow of the aquarium. "Okay. Then we take Taylor and we have him close behind us."

"Okay," she said, and part of her understood. Sidonis was _his_, a piece of the past that was only his, and she knew that somewhere along the way, revenge and responsibility mirrored each other.

"We'll check at C-Sec. Ask about Fade. Go from there. If we have to, we can comb through the place ward by ward until we find him or Sidonis or both of them."

"Okay." Fluidly, Shepard swung her weapon harness onto her shoulders. "You ready?"

"Yeah," Garrus said. "I'm ready."


	9. Worth

_As always, a really big thank-you to everyone who's following this story - your support is always very much appreciated. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Nine – Worth**_

Usually, Shepard thought, she enjoyed the Citadel. She had discovered far too much fun in getting herself lost in the lower wards, often between smoky bars and overpriced restaurants and tiny hole-in-the-wall joints that sold searing liquor. Some half-buried, slightly childish part of her even occasionally relished the task of pushing through the frustrating crowds that swarmed between the merchants' stands.

But today she was leaning against the wall outside a C-Sec office, Taylor waiting across from her, and she could not quite ignore the apprehension that was turning her stomach into a knot. _The same feeling before plunging into combat_, she thought, almost idly. Or close enough to it, the prickling awareness that it was down to her nerves and her reaction speed and it was _fucking stupid_ because she hadn't even _drawn_ a weapon yet.

Taylor shifted, his head lifting. Shepard followed his gaze until she was looking at Garrus as he strode around the corner, each step purposeful and predatory.

"Hey," she said, and caught his arm. "What did they say?"

"Fade's been seen."

"Where?" She dug her fingers against his armour and yanked. "_Garrus_. We can't do this if I don't know what the hell's going on."

Some of the tension bled from his frame, and he snapped, "I know where we're going. It's an old warehouse, small place on a piece-of-shit ward."

"And when we get there?"

"I'm going to talk to Fade."

She matched his pace, and he did not speak, not when they flagged down a cab, and not when they slipped into the musty darkness of the ward.

_The mess hall was almost deserted. Shepard leaned on her elbow, aware of the easy silence. Beneath the table, her feet were tangled with Kaidan's. _

"_Commander?"_

_She turned, easily, smiling up at Vakarian as his shoulders and the jut of his fringe blocked the light. "Yeah? What can I do for you?"_

"_I know it's late, Commander."_

"_It's fine," she told him. _

"_The co-ordinates," Vakarian said. "You said you wanted them?"_

"_Yeah," she answered. He pressed a datapad into her hands, and she added, "We'll head on as soon as the redeye shift switches over. Okay?"_

"_Yeah," Vakarian said. "Thanks, Commander. I appreciate it."_

_When the turian's footfalls retreated back across the mess hall, she turned back to Kaidan's slightly quizzical expression. _

"_Doctor Saleon," she explained. _

"_Ah, yeah, I remember. You got a plan?"_

"_I'll let him talk it through before we get there. He knows what he's doing."_

And he had, that day, she remembered. It had been clean and unhurried and precise, working their way through Saleon's ship room by room and deck by deck until they found him. He'd been as unruffled when they'd finally looked the salarian in the face, she recalled. One shot, point-blank range, and then he'd turned away, and they'd talked about it, later, on the _Normandy_, in the mess hall, surrounded by the buzz of conversation.

_That was then_, she thought. _That was then and this is now and a small ship floating far away from trade routes is not the same as committing murder on the Citadel_.

Nestled between weapon dealers' shacks, the warehouse was grimy and poorly lit and inside, Shepard and Taylor shot two krogan while Garrus leveled his pistol at a volus. A volus who stammered and tried to back away and finally blurted out that he really didn't need to die today.

"Of course he's not really Fade," Shepard muttered, and shrugged. "Are we really surprised?"

"No," Garrus answered. "That still leaves me with an unanswered question."

"Harkin," the volus said, his voice rasping and uneven. "Harkin. Used to be C-Sec."

"I know Harkin," Garrus said, flatly. "Where?"

"Hiding out in the factory district. It's a maze in there."

"Then you'll give me a map and you'll forget we've been here."

Shepard trailed him back out to the cab, and she lasted out the needling silence until he reached for the controls.

"Listen," she said. "Harkin?"

"I don't know how he did it. Sneaky bastard's got more determination than I ever gave him credit for."

"Yeah, I remember. As far as I'm concerned he should be getting drunk and leering at everything that walks past him."

"Yeah," Garrus said, as clipped.

"Garrus," she said, warningly.

"He's a criminal."

"And that's what C-Sec are for."

"Right," he said heavily. "Of course."

"You think I want to wait around here if you get pulled in for questioning if you go too far?"

"That a threat, Shepard?"

"It's a fact," she snapped back at him. "You fuck around, and you get yourself detained, that's your fucking problem. You're here for Sidonis. Ignore Harkin."

"Harkin's the reason C-Sec are running in circles," he said. "You know that."

"Yeah. I do. And that's why you can take his location and the details of his flashy little forging business right back to C-Sec when we get this done."

"Shepard," he said.

"No. You're pissed off because it's Harkin."

"What does it matter? He's a criminal."

"So you said." She pushed her gloved fingers through the uneven thatch of her hair.

"I'm not going to kill him. Not while he can tell me all sorts of things about Sidonis."

"Okay." She nodded, and tried to swallow away the sudden dryness in her throat. "Let's get this done."

* * *

><p>The roar of the gunfire filled Shepard's head. She counted the speeding beat of her own heart, half-twisted so that she could see around the sharp corner, and fired again. The volley sprayed uselessly against the towering mech's flank. "Taylor," she snapped. "Soften it up for me."<p>

"Got it," he responded.

A blue sphere ploughed into the mech, and when it wobbled slightly, Shepard uncurled again and fired. She squeezed the trigger in measured, easy bursts until the mech swung towards her, ponderously, its huge gun barrels flaring. She dropped again, slamming her shoulders back against the wall.

_Lumbering mechs and his own private fucking army_, she thought. Harkin had certainly slithered his way up in the world. Absurdly, she found herself smiling slightly.

The sharp crack of Garrus' sniper rifle jolted her thoughts, and she heard the crackle of the impact. She straightened in time to see the mech wavering, and another burst from her rifle tipped it onto its side. Before she could speak, Garrus was moving again, darting between the knifing ravine of the high walls. She swore, and pulled her rifle tight against her side. "Taylor, after me," she called over her shoulder.

Garrus cleared the archway at the far end, Shepard on his heels as his pace quickened. On both sides, the clutter of storage crates and old consoles filled the dusty silence.

"There," Garrus said tersely.

She followed the jerk of his head and saw lit windows and a closed door and hoped like hell that Harkin had boxed himself in.

Garrus paused, his whole frame rigid, and he slung his sniper rifle off his shoulder.

"No," Shepard murmured, when he flicked the scope up. "Shoot out the windows and he has an exit. Carefully, and we'll have him trapped."

"Yeah." His hands relaxed slightly on the rifle. "Yeah. Sorry. Not thinking."

She bit back the venomous response that pushed at her tongue – _no, he was damn well not thinking, and hadn't been since they'd set foot on the fucking Citadel_ – and pushed on ahead of him. She hauled herself up and past more closed-off storage containers and eyed the door.

Wordlessly, Garrus stopped beside her. She waited, rifle hefted, while he pried off the door's control panel. As quietly, Taylor hoisted himself up the last ledge of the crates and settled himself on the other side of the door. Garrus' talons flickered across the control panel again, and he teased the door open slightly.

She motioned to Taylor to stay put, and another step took her through the door. She looked across the pitted floor, smiled, and said, "Hello, Harkin. Remember us?"

* * *

><p>He looked almost the same, Shepard decided. Thin beneath dark fatigues and creases around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. The same slightly watery gaze that she recalled from that meeting in Chora's Den, however long ago that had been.<p>

_Two years and a bit ago. Two years and a death ago._

And right now, he was ashen and bruised and with Garrus' pistol jammed under his jaw.

"Set up a meeting," Garrus said again. "Tell him his identity is compromised and you'll be sending someone to help out. That's all you need to do."

"That's all?" Harkin glared up into Garrus' face. "Sure. Like I believe that."

Shepard heard the rough, wavering note in the man's voice. "Just do it," she said. "Don't make it any harder than it already is."

Harkin's expression tightened, and for a lurching, terrible moment, Shepard thought he was going to mumble something sardonic again.

"Okay," Harkin said, and beneath Garrus' unforgiving grip, his whole body seemed to sag. "Alright. Just let me…alright. Where do you want to meet him?"

"Near to here as possible," Garrus said.

"Okay. Okay, I can do that. Just give me a minute."

Garrus nodded, and when Harkin stumbled to the console, he kept the pistol leveled at the back of the man's head. Harkin's hands shook against the keypad, and eventually, he muttered, "Orbital Lounge okay?"

"Fine," Garrus answered. "I know it."

"Good," Harkin said. "So, if our business is done, I'll be going?"

Garrus snarled. He reached for Harkin again, and without thinking, Shepard caught his wrist and tugged.

"Later," she snapped. "He's not important. Sidonis is."

Garrus shoved her away, his hands hard against her arm. "Fine," he said. "But if he's screwed us, I'm coming back."

Harkin shouted something after them, and Shepard barely heard him. Her gaze was on Garrus and the stiff set of his shoulders, and the deliberate way he was not looking back at her. She let him seethe until they found the cab again, and when he moved to open the main door, she stepped in front of him.

"We need to talk," she told him.

"No, we don't."

"You kicked the living hell out of him."

"He's still breathing."

She glared up into his face, and when his furious expression did not relax, she realised that it _hurt_. "I don't know where the hell you are right now," she hissed. "But it sure as hell isn't here."

But she _did_ know, and she could see it in every taut, fierce line of his frame.

He was on Omega again.

"We need to go," Garrus said.

"Alright," she replied, because she could think of nothing else to say. She swung herself into the cab beside him and half-listened as he kicked the controls into gear. He was simmering, the anger coming off him in waves, and it filled the silence between them.

Twenty slow minutes took the cab back up a level, and winding through cramped buildings until Garrus slowed it to a crawl. He was moving again as the engine cooled, swinging the main door open and plunging out onto the walkway beyond.

"Garrus." She nodded to Taylor to wait again, and privately thanked her stars for the man's patience. "Slow it down a bit."

He was staring over her shoulder, down to the spill of lights and colours that she supposed was their meeting place. "I need to set up. You need to get down there."

"You see him yet?"

"Yeah," Garrus said, and his gaze did not shift. "Yeah. I see him."

"Listen to me," she said, quietly. His hands blurred over his sniper rifle as he checked the barrel and the stock and the trigger. "Garrus," she said. "You're sure about this?"

"Shepard. I'm not having this discussion." His sloped shoulders blocked the light, and she was suddenly very aware of his teeth, bared in a snarl. "He deserves to die. He walked away from me. From us. Left everyone dead because he was a fucking _coward_. Do you get it?"

"Yeah," she said evenly. "I get it."

"No. You don't. You weren't there."

"No," she snapped, viciously. "I was on a fucking _operating table_ resembling chopped liver while Cerberus rebuilt me. What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know." His voice had deepened, and the flanging burr in it had roughened, almost ruining the words. "I don't know. Just get down there and talk before he bolts."

"Okay," she said, softly. She turned away from him then, away from the weight of his gaze and the awful, dragging knowledge that his hands were shaking around his rifle. She found the steps down, and the way out into the lounge itself. She scanned the milling crowd until she saw him, sitting hunched on a bench, his hands wreathed together.

_Sidonis_, she thought, and regarded him warily. Yellow eyes and purple markings and a rangy frame swathed beneath a loose-fitting tunic.

Sidonis' head lifted, and she nodded back to him, blank-faced. She waited, hands clasped loosely at her sides. He was smaller framed, she thought, leaner than Garrus, whipcord thin in the shoulders.

"Alright," Sidonis said, hurriedly, anxiously. "Let's get this over with."

Almost without thinking, Shepard said, "I know Garrus. That's why I'm here."

"Shit," the turian mumbled. His shoulders tightened. "Look, I…"

"Yeah, I know," she said. The words tumbled out faster, almost desperate. "Okay, listen to me. My name is Shepard."

* * *

><p>She was talking to him. She was fucking <em>talking<em> to him, and the slope of her shoulder was half in his scope.

Garrus swallowed back the surge of anger. Beneath his armour, he felt hot, as if the hide between his plates was prickling, as if he should be moving or running or doing something useful.

Instead of glowering through his scope at the back of Shepard's head and half of Sidonis' face.

"Shepard," he said. "You're in my shot. _Move_."

His comm unit hissed uselessly, and he growled again. He tightened his arm around the stock of the rifle. For too long he stared at the back of her head, at the dark glossy mess of her hair, rumpled from her fingers, he supposed. Painfully, he made himself look past her, past her shoulder, to Sidonis' narrowed yellow eyes.

"Garrus, listen," Shepard said, and her voice filled his head.

"I need," he said, and the words caught on his tongue. "Move."

"Just listen," she said again, and through the scope, he saw it as she pulled Sidonis close enough that he could speak directly into her wrist comm.

He heard Sidonis' voice again, unsteady and almost stammering and viciously, he wished the bastard had never opened his mouth.

_Wished Shepard had just done as he'd said. _

Somehow he listened, his finger curling against the trigger. He kept his gaze on the scope and on Sidonis' face as he spoke, his eyes darting and his jaw clicking.

Omega and gangs and pressure and Garrus knew he shouldn't bring the smallest shred of himself to care why Sidonis had done it. _Claimed to have done it_, he thought.

But he knew Omega, and he knew how it worked, insidious and shrewd and volatile all at once. He knew that a mark of interest by any of them – Garm's thugs or Jaroth's lackeys or any of them who scurried and bled and died in the ugly warrens of the station – meant nothing good. _Meant death or co-operation or running like hell to get as far away as anyone could_, he thought.

But he'd promised himself he'd hunt Sidonis down and cut the price for all the others out of his body and here he was, his hands trembling and his mouth going dry again and he didn't know what to do.

"Shepard," he said, and startled himself when he realised he'd spoken her name out loud.

"Yeah?" she responded.

He shook his head, and she did not press him. She was pale in the scope, her eyes very dark beneath the too-bright lights as she looked back at him.

"I don't," he said, and stopped. He dragged down another breath. "Just…go. Tell him to go."

He spun the rifle until it smacked hard against his shoulder. He unlatched his hands from its sleek coolness. If she was still talking, he couldn't hear her. His head was heavy and buzzing. Far too slowly, he clipped the scope back down. He waited, his shoulders aching, until he heard her footsteps against the walkway again.

"Hey," she said. "Okay?"

He wanted to ask where Sidonis had gone. Which direction he'd taken, whether he'd headed for the nearest cab rank or the transport station or if he'd said anything that might hint at where he might flee to next.

Garrus shook his head. "No. Let's get out of here."

* * *

><p>On the ship, she left him alone, and he couldn't quite work out if he was glad of it or not. In the white-walled silence of his cabin, the anger seemed to curl in on itself until he felt numb with it. He scraped the grime of the Citadel off his armour and his rifle and his pistol. He'd tried to banish the thought of Harkin, writhing after he'd slugged the man in the chest.<p>

_He'd deserved it_, Garrus thought, despite himself. _Deserved it for the forging or for something else. Anything else_.

He thought of Sidonis again, walking away and walking away again _because Garrus had let him go_. He remembered the way Harkin had shuddered and whimpered. The way Sidonis had stared over Shepard's shoulder, his yellow eyes as wide and uncertain as they'd been on that day on Omega, before he'd turned and walked away the first time.

He checked the time and quartered the room again before he thumped the comm console. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?" she responded, halfway through a yawn.

"Sorry," he said, awkwardly. "You still awake?"

"I am now, Vakarian," she said, and he heard the slight smile in her voice. "You want company?"

"Yeah," he said, eventually. "Yeah, I do."

When she stepped through the unlocked door, he was sitting on the end of the bed, his talons clasped together. He wondered if she could feel the strange, heavy uncertainty that filled the room.

"Hey," she said, and unceremoniously flopped onto the empty chair. "Feel any better?"

"Not really." He made himself look up. "It was…I was so angry."

"I know."

"And then he talked about it, and I still wanted him dead. I wanted him dead in front of the whole Citadel."

"What changed?"

"You got in my way," he snapped, and he was aware suddenly that his voice was too loud, too jarring. He wanted her to tell him he'd been right, right in the stupid snap decision he'd made. Right not to have shouted her down and ordered her out of the way. Right not to have blown Sidonis' head in half, despite what he'd said. "You got in my way and in front of my scope."

"And?"

She was glaring back at him, sharply, with that pinched frown between her eyes that he knew meant she wouldn't be backing down.

"And I considered clipping you so you'd drop and clear my line of sight."

Shepard snorted. "You fucking liar," she said mildly.

"Look, I don't," he said. He pressed his hands together harder. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"You asked me down here."

"You asked to come down here," he retorted, and almost immediately regretted it. "Shit. That was stupid."

"Yeah," Shepard said, and the corners of her mouth twitched.

He wrestled with his nerves again, with the strange, unfamiliar way his thoughts kept whirling. "I _couldn't_. I was looking at you and looking at him and I heard what he said and I couldn't. Is that what you want to hear? That you won?"

"I didn't win anything," she said, softly. "I just didn't want to lose you."

"You wouldn't've lost me," he responded, and didn't quite trust himself to say anything else, not with the strange way her words had made his gut churn.

"Yeah, well. I get it. You're big enough and ugly enough to make your own decisions. I know that. I just didn't like that you weren't being, well. You."

"Yeah," Garrus echoed. He stared down at the floor between Shepard's boots, black and polished and neatly laced. He remembered it, the anger sharp and biting and giving him a reason to keep moving and keep firing except he wasn't on Omega any more, and the best it had done him today was make his hands shake too much. "I think I know what you mean."

"Hey," Shepard said, into the stretching, febrile silence. "You want to spar?"

"Now?"

"Garrus, if you're anything like me, you've spent the past three hours chasing your own adrenaline around this room."

He swallowed an unbidden laugh. "You know you'll lose."

"Empty words, turian."

Half an hour later, the ache in his shoulders had subsided a little. Shepard grinned up at him through the sweat-damp mop of her hair and caught his wrist, dragging his arm down so she could unfasten the sparring pad.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, and slipped the ties over the back of his hand.

"I'm thinking the world should be simpler."

"Yeah."

"The world in black and white is easy. I pull the trigger, I live with it." He watched as she turned her attention to his other hand, her thin human fingers plying the straps apart. "Grey. I don't know what to do with grey."

"I know," she said. "You look at someone you used to know and it isn't easy any more."

"Yeah, I guess." He waited, his stance poised, while she fitted her hands between the straps. "Okay?"

"Okay."

His fists thumped against her open palms, sinking into the sparring pads, one after the other, driving her back as she gave ground.

"Stop being nice," he said, and heard his own voice sharpen.

"I'm never nice," Shepard retorted, almost breathlessly. She braced herself properly, and his next blow slammed hard and did not shake her. "You should know that by now."

"Bullshit," he said, mostly out of habit.

He aimed another flurry, each stroke heavy and relentless. She met him, step for step and swing for swing, and by the time they walked each other across the room and back, he was breathing unevenly.

Garrus held up one hand. "Okay. I'm done."

Gracelessly, he sat on the bench. She pried off the sparring pads and curled herself beside him, sitting cross-legged, her elbows planted on the inside of her knees.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You going to be okay?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered, and he thought that it might even be the truth. "I think so."


	10. Ghosts

_As always, the biggest thank-you to everyone who's following, reviewing, and has this story on alerts or favourites. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Ten – Ghosts**_

Shepard gazed down at the report. She was aware of the Illusive Man's unwavering gaze on her, and the soft orange lights above. "_Another_ derelict ship. Just floating around waiting for us. Right."

"Shepard," he said, and raised one languid hand. "We need its IFF device."

"_I_ need, you mean. And yeah, I heard that part. I got it. Galactic core, Omega-4 relay. Some big fat black hole that just happens to be the Collectors' playground." Deliberately bland, she added, "Nice to know where they're hiding out, I guess. The part I'm confused about is why the hell you thought it was a good idea to send a science team into an empty Reaper."

"The gathering of information is imperative at this point."

"Yeah, and so is the survival of my squad. We're going nowhere near this thing until I'm damn sure they're ready."

"That's your prerogative, of course." The corners of his mouth tightened.

"Yeah, it is," she said in the same venomously banal tone. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm busy."

She spun away towards the stairs, and tried to quell her sudden, absurd rush of amusement. She discovered the mess hall thronged, and darted her way between two of the CIC crewmen. She eeled her way towards the smaller table near the far wall, pausing only to pour coffee. Almost indolently, she ensconced herself in an empty chair opposite Garrus.

"You look far too awake," Tali remarked, from where she sat beside Shepard.

"I've been on this ship so long I think all my shifts are just blurring into each other," Shepard said. "That and my early morning get-together with the boss was suitably invigorating."

She nodded to Taylor, where he sat further down, halfway through breakfast, and to Donnelly and Daniels. Briefly she wondered if they were going to salute her again – _and God, they looked so young this morning, every morning if she let herself think about it – _but they only nodded back to her.

"Anything important for today?" Garrus asked.

"Get eaten by Reapers," she shot back at him. "EDI's been pulling in a few transmissions. Drop and scout missions, mostly. It'll give us something to do for a while."

"Running errands."

"That's what being a soldier is, Vakarian," she said, and grinned. "Glorified errand boys with guns."

His eyes sparkled, and he responded, "Can't possibly be worse than the amount of time we spent running around just because Admiral Hackett decided to get in touch."

Shepard groaned. "My God, yes. That was a long, long few weeks. _'Hey, Shepard, you're in the area. Go slog through five geth bases and I might sound slightly grateful when you report back_.' That or the space monkeys."

"Sorry, Commander?" Donnelly grinned and leaned forward.

"Long story," Shepard said. "Involving a downed recon probe, a stunningly beautiful planet, and small, fluffy, frolicking little creatures. And a missing data core. Fourteen hours of my life that I'll never get back."

"And you know that's the kind of shit they never talk about at bootcamp," Garrus said, his mandibles flaring into a smile.

Shepard snorted. "Maybe they should start. Make yourself useful and be ready in two hours, errand boy."

"Nice. Anyone else?"

She drained the cooling dregs of the coffee. "Yeah, talk to Krios. And see if Jack wants to slink back up to the land of the living for this one."

* * *

><p><em>She hit the ground hard, and heard the roar as Saren gunned the glider. Her hand ached where she had clouted him, and her mouth felt dry and full of sand. She forced herself to move, trying to ignore the thumping in her head and that terrible, twisting agony somewhere behind her ribs. She made it through the smoking wreckage, and when she dropped heavily to her knees beside Kaidan, she swallowed. <em>

_ His face was grey, eyes wide and black with pain. "Shepard? You alright?"_

_ "Don't talk." She leaned over him. Blood shone on the stone beneath him, and she saw the ragged hole in his armour, two inches or so above his hip and still welling. "Kaidan, we have to get you up."_

_ He shook his head, teeth gritted. "Hurts."_

_ "I know."_ He's gut-shot, _she thought frantically. _Course it fucking hurts_._ _"Come on. Please." She slipped an arm behind his shoulders, propped him up. The motion wrenched a gasp from him, and he stiffened. "Lean against me."_

_ He sagged back against her arm, and she winced._ _"Come on. I need you on your feet. The ship's nearly here. I don't have the medi-gel to patch you up, not here." She locked her arm behind his shoulders, tried to haul him to his feet. He made it halfway, swaying, teeth clenching. "Come on, Kaidan!"_

_ She steadied him as his weight came down on her shoulder again. She heard the familiar, low-toned thrum as the_ Normandy _settled, light and poised. She peered through the smoke, saw figures bolting down the __landing ramp, their faces blurred by the haze and the savage sting of her own sweat. She heard voices, calling for Doctor Chakwas to hurry outside, for medi-gel to be brought, for soldiers to sweep the area, to check for any geth still hiding. _

_ Hands grasped her arms, holding her up, prying her away from Kaidan. _

"_We've got him, Commander." She did not recognize the voice, or the fingers wrapped around her wrists. "Let go. We've got him." _

_Somehow she loosened her death-grip on Kaidan's shoulder. More voices, drifting through the smoke, not quite biting into the whirl of her thoughts. The sound of footsteps against stone, ushering her back up towards the ship, towards safety, and somehow she made her feet obey. The weapon harness felt abruptly too heavy against her aching shoulders, and the whiteness streaming up from the _Normandy_'s landing lights was searing. _

"_Commander?" _

_That voice she knew. Garrus, his normally measured tones sounding frayed. She made herself turn her head, blinking sticky eyelashes, trying to see him. "Garrus..?"_

_He tipped his head on one side, that much she was certain. "Commander, you look terrible. You need to go to the medbay."_

_She shook her head. "Can't." _

_She took another step, and the floor lurched alarmingly. One armoured, three-fingered turian hand caught her elbow, and she staggered, bumping against him. _

"_Commander." Quietly censuring, Garrus steadied her again. "You have to go and get some rest. Get cleaned up. Get some sleep. The doctor knows what she's doing."_

But she hadn't, she remembered. She had shaken him off and stalked down to the medbay regardless. _Stupid_, she thought, and stared down at the broken-up pieces of her rifle. The scent of weapon oil filled her mouth and nose. _Stupid_, she thought again, stupid to have her mind all upended because of some inconsequential bullshit storytelling in the mess hall.

But still she lingered on it, the sharp brand in her memory that was Virmire, that was the day she'd killed Ash, that was the day she'd come back on board the _Normandy_ from another of Hackett's assignments to a message from the Council.

A salarian infiltration team, they had told her, and perhaps the chance to get herself closer to Saren.

And she'd come away from it with nothing to show for it except badly bruised fingers, a full medbay and a KIA status to log.

_Sleep eluded her until Chakwas' message came through, rough with exhaustion. "Come down, Commander. He's awake." _

_He was awake and breathing steadily and she thought he looked fucking dreadful. He was propped up, the skin around his mouth chalky, and the broad planes of his chest and stomach still swathed in bandages. _

"_God, Kaidan," she said, quietly. "Nobody ever tell you to dodge incoming fire?"_

_Painfully, he smiled. "Yeah, I know."_

"_You okay?"_

"_Yeah. We get away okay?"_

"_Yeah." She remembered the wrenching white blast that had flooded the sky behind the ship. "Ash is dead."_

_She saw him flinch, half-buried, even though he must've known. _

"_Yeah," Kaidan breathed. "I thought…God, Shepard. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."_

"_So am I." _

_The anger kept her awake through most of the night cycle. She sat cross-legged on the end of her bed, her eyes burning. When she eventually slept, she saw Saren and Sovereign and jolted awake to sweat-dampened sheets. _

Her fingers slipped against the side of the rifle and she swore. Treat every mission like it might be Virmire – or Elysium, or the first time she'd taken a bullet to the ribs, or the first time she'd fucked up enough to lose a soldier – and all she'd achieve would be running herself in desperate circles, trying to second-guess everything down to her own heartbeat.

Distance and detachment and _she knew_ there came a point where you threw it all up for fate to catch and hoped like hell it worked.

Briskly, she slotted the rifle together. She ran her hands over the cool, gleaming metal pieces, her fingertips brushing the tiny scuff marks beneath the barrel and along the stock. "EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"How's the shuttle bay looking?"

"Prepped as per your request," EDI answered. "Officer Vakarian is already there."

"Of course he is." Smiling slightly, Shepard hefted her weapon harness across her shoulders. "Thanks, EDI."

* * *

><p>Four hours later, Shepard found herself crouched behind the fallen slant of a transport wing. "Good God almighty, how long can they keep this up?"<p>

Huddled beside her, Garrus shrugged. He glanced up at the new arc of bullet holes above them and waited for the next lull in the clamour of the gunfire. "There's a lot of them. They're stubborn."

"So am I," she replied automatically. "Jack, you hear me?"

"Still alive," Jack responded, her voice distorted by the distance. "We're up at the third archway. Place is crawling."

"Stay there."

"We've _been_ staying here," Jack muttered.

"Stay there," Shepard said, sharper. "We'll cut them back, and you can come join us afterwards."

"Yeah, okay."

"You know," Shepard said, and glanced at her omni-tool again. "I think I could live with never, ever running into anyone wearing Eclipse armour ever again."

Garrus laughed. "Not a chance."

"Spoilsport." She tilted her head. "Hear that?"

"I hear that," he said, and pulled his rifle tighter into his shoulder.

"Okay, I go…"

"…and I got you," he said.

"If I get killed, you're at fault."

"Yeah, yeah." Gracefully, he unhooked a grenade with his free hand. He yanked the pin out with his teeth and glanced back at her. "Ready?"

"Ready," she answered.

She watched the swooping arc as the grenade swept up and plunged down again. She waited out the few seconds she needed before the thump of the explosion shook the ground, and then she was moving, vaulting over the edge of the wing and hurtling full-pelt. Without slowing, she darted between the next set of stone pillars, and into the dust haze. This close, she could hear them, men coughing and swearing and another two crying out. Garrus fired, viper-fast, and two more of them fell, hulking and almost shapeless amid the dust.

Shepard pushed on, pausing only when she had to dive into cover behind the pillars. Behind her, Garrus fired steadily. She waited again, legs braced, and watching as the haze cleared. She lifted her rifle, and a short burst of fire toppled another mercenary. Another swept a second man's feet out from under him, and her follow-up shot split his forehead.

"All clear, Shepard," Garrus said.

"Good." She leaned back against the pillar and waited, half-smiling as she watched him haul himself out into the open. "Nice shooting."

"Target practice."

"Arrogant turian," she said, almost absent-mindedly. "Jack?"

"Still here, Shepard," Jack answered. "Can we move yet?"

"Yeah, slowly. We're coming to you. Don't get excited and shoot us."

"Yeah, you wish."

Patiently, with Garrus shadowing her, she worked her way through the open area, winding between the pillars. The first archway proved to be thronged with mercenaries, and another grenade and a follow-up round of bullets cleared a path through them. The second stood nearly empty, and she looked up in time to see a surge of biotic energy as it spilled between the pillars.

"Rein it in, Jack," she called, lightly. "I like my feet on the ground."

"Yeah, okay," Jack responded. She slipped through the archway, the sharp angles of her face alight as she grinned. "Got through them all?"

"Yeah," Shepard said. "Go through the console yet?"

"Yeah, Krios has the download."

"Good." She nudged the side of Garrus' arm. "Time to go home then."

* * *

><p>The evening brought a gentle ease-down of a work-out, reports, and eventually, Garrus, as he paused in the doorway. "Sure you're not busy?"<p>

She glanced down at the daily log, flipped open across her knees. "You can save me from my reports, if you want."

"You're a terrible CO."

"That's insubordinate talk, turian."

"You know it." He hovered, pressing his hands together, until she motioned him closer. "Today. That was…"

"Fun?" she supplied, and grinned. "Yeah. It was. But don't tell our employer that."

"I'll keep it to myself, I promise." Garrus sat, his angular frame filling the other half of the couch beside her. "We're okay?"

He could not mean the junkyard of a planet they'd just left dotted with shrapnel, and she discovered herself smiling. "Yeah," she said, softly. "I think we are."

She shifted, lifting her booted feet onto the couch and turning so that she could look at him properly. She wrapped her arms around her shins and said, "You know what's weird? I was thinking about Virmire earlier."

"Yeah?"

"I didn't mean to. Didn't even want to. I don't know. You know when you've tried like hell not to think of something?"

"Yeah," he said. "And it rushes up at you anyway."

"Yeah. I was thinking about how it just got out of control so quickly. Sovereign. Then Saren."

Ash's name floated between them, and mercifully, he did not try to offer platitudes. She'd heard enough of those in the strained, grey days after Virmire, the days when Liara had told her she'd done her best, when the Council said she'd mostly done well, when Pressly and Joker and even Kaidan had said the same thing.

_You did what you could_. _There was nothing you could've done. Sometimes bad choices make themselves. You did what you could. _

"I was thinking," Garrus said slowly. "I was thinking about Sidonis. I know it's not the same. I just…I don't know." Helplessly, he shrugged. "Yeah. That made sense."

"It sort of did."

"Which just makes you as crazy as me."

"Have to be, to be here."

"Nah, Shepard. I'm here for the food."

She spluttered into a laugh. "You remember how pretty the beach on Virmire was?"

"Yeah. White sand and turquoise water. Shame about the secret base and the krogan army."

Absurdly, her shoulders were shaking as she laughed again. "And the sneaky-ass Reaper. This really isn't funny."

"Not at all. Though you did get to punch Saren."

"You remember that?"

"I was always slightly jealous."

"You were not," she protested. She was still laughing, quietly now, and it was making her ache. To distract herself, she braced her feet against the side of his leg. He was solid, she noticed, all muscle or plating or whatever it was underneath his faded fatigues and abruptly she found herself hunting for another distraction. "Besides, I think I nearly broke my whole hand."

"Turians are tough."

"Yeah, yeah." She grinned over crossed arms at him. "What do you think of the IFF?"

"Means to an end," Garrus said. "If we need it, we need it."

"Even though it's lurking inside an empty Reaper."

"Yeah, that's a leading statement if ever I heard one. No, I don't like the idea of going after it. I don't like that the Illusive Man has sent some Cerberus contingent in ahead of us."

"Yeah. Fuck knows what might happen."

"Shepard?" Garrus' head turned, his blue eyes level and serious. "You think he actually gets it?"

"About the Reapers? I think he gets that they're a very real threat. Yeah. He gets that. I don't know if he gets the indoctrination crap. Hell, _Saren_ didn't get it. Not really. Or he thought he could think himself out of it or around it or whatever."

"He thought it was the same as surrender," Garrus said, quietly. "Sort of. Or part of a surrender that he thought he was making. That it could end up a negotiation."

"God, Garrus. You actually _listened_ to him?"

"I took notes," he said, deadpan.

"Funny."

"Yeah," Garrus said. He lifted his hand, shrugged, and dropped his hand into his lap again. "The Illusive Man thinks it's a dead ship?"

"Yeah. You want to come with me for that one?"

"Uncharted territory, dead Reapers, and the galactic core. Remind me again why I'm here?"

Shepard snorted. "To save the galaxy, blow shit up and waste time in my inestimable company?"

Garrus laughed. "Something like that."

"Yeah? You got any better offers?"

"Not right now," he answered, wryly.

She swung her feet back onto the floor. "It's a fair way down my to-do list. If it's going to be a colossal fuck-up, I'd rather it be one that we get through still breathing."

"Yeah."

She let the silence pool between them again, somehow tremulous and peaceful at the same time. As wordlessly, she leaned into the press of his shoulder and he met her halfway, turning so that the side of his arm touched hers.

"Hey," he said. "When did we start doing this?"

"I'm not sure," she said, and it was only half true. Unaccountably, something very like nervousness tightened in her belly. "Is it okay?"

"Yeah," he answered, softly. "It's okay."


	11. Scars

_As always, a very big thank-you to everyone who's following and supporting this story. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Eleven – Scars**_

Garrus glowered at the console read-out. He'd reworked the firing algorithms _twice_ and they still wouldn't be beaten into shape. Briefly he wondered if he should chase Tali down, or those two kids in engineering, and hope that between them they might be able to wrest something useful of his morning shift.

The door swished open behind him, and he growled, low in his throat.

"Yes, I'm busy, and no, I'm not having fun," he snapped over his shoulder.

"Fighting the console again?" Shepard asked.

"Yeah. I was tinkering with the main power draw and now it's shut its teeth on me."

"What a bitch," she said, and he was sure he could hear her almost laughing.

"Very funny."

"So this means you want a break?"

"Yeah, if it means I can shoot myself. Or the console. Whichever."

"No, because that would mean ugly turian brains all over the floor." She paced past him and leaned her elbows on the guard rail. Her head tilted, and he was aware that she was looking at him, all pale skin and curious dark eyes. "I was talking to Mordin."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. He has unfinished business, as it turns out."

"Doesn't everyone?"

"Yeah, but his involves tracking down an old research assistant. I said we'd help out."

"We?" He turned, planting his shoulders against the rail.

"Hey," she said, and grinned up at him. "You can stay here if you want instead."

"I didn't say that," he protested. "Where are we going?"

"Tuchanka."

"Tuchanka's the ass-end of the galaxy."

"I'll tell Wrex you said that." Her expression softened slightly. "Tough morning?"

"No," he admitted. "I'm just used to getting it to work quickly. It isn't, so I'm pissed off."

"Just kick it."

He laughed, and the last of the tension emptied from his shoulders. "Sure. _That'll_ make me feel better."

"Works for me," she told him archly. "Come get something to eat, and then you can glare it into submission later."

"There's a tempting offer." Garrus shoved away from the guard rail and ignored the blinking console. "And you can tell me more about what I've just volunteered for as well."

* * *

><p>Tuchanka was as desolate, wind-raked and crawling with varren as Garrus expected. Two hours in a lurching krogan transport took them through the concrete and metal sprawl of ruins, and into the stink of death. Dead krogan strapped to old gurneys and flickering consoles still spitting out old results and Garrus considered again that he might never care for scientists. Not when their work was so murky, so embedded in the taking and changing and altering of people.<p>

_Including Shepard_, some stray thought prodded. _Yeah_, he thought, including Shepard, but she'd been kicking at the shackles Cerberus had left on her, and he knew she was ornery enough not to change her mind any time soon.

Deep in the rotting warren of the complex, they discovered Solus' former assistant, hiding behind a phalanx of krogan and some bullshit excuse about genophage adaptation. Garrus kept his mouth shut and his scope snapped up when Shepard wrenched the salarian's pistol from his hand. He stayed as silent when Solus ordered the bastard out of the complex and off the planet. He supposed that he would've shot Solus' assistant – _it would've kept his wiry salarian hands out of anyone else's cut-open chest cavity, at least – _but it was Solus' past and Solus' problem, and part of him understood.

Later, at the landing site, the wind gusted between the jagged high walls. When the transport door creaked its way up, he heard Wrex's welcoming bellow.

"Shepard," Wrex said, his teeth bared in a fierce grin. "Get your salarian?"

"Yeah, found him," Shepard answered. She pushed her fingers through sweat-dampened dark hair. "We also shot some big bastard calling himself Weyrloc Guld."

"Him," Wrex muttered. "Won't be missed. Come and sit down."

Shepard grinned and curled herself cross-legged on a pitted stone slab. "Nice place you got here, Wrex."

"Funny, Shepard."

"Course it is."

Garrus sat beside her, folding his hands over his knees. "You could throw some paint on some of the walls," he suggested, deliberately wry.

Wrex snorted. "Garrus Vakarian," he said, his level stare lifting and fixing on Garrus' face. "What happened to you?"

"I head-butted a rocket," he retorted, and heard Shepard's half-stifled laugh.

"Did it work?"

"Yeah. Mostly."

"Obviously," Wrex said. "So tell me. What are you saving the galaxy from this time?"

* * *

><p>"Solus kept the data," Garrus said, his head bent over the blue pieces of his armour. He ran his fingers along a new scrape and clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. "Maelon's data."<p>

"Yeah," Shepard said. She'd already finished up with her own armour and was currently occupying most of the spare chair, sitting in that loose-limbed, lazy way that he was not entirely convinced could be comfortable, not with the way her legs were slung up over the chair arm.

"Good idea?"

"I don't know," she said, musingly. "If it comes back to kick him in the gut, then it does. Most things do." She smiled then, slowly. "Including life, sometimes."

"Shepard."

"Sorry," she said.

"No, you aren't," he retorted.

"Well, maybe a little. Done?"

"Yeah," he answered, and straightened up.

He arranged the pieces of his armour onto the rack beside his gear locker, and he almost wasn't surprised when she leaned around him to help. Afterwards, he sat beside her on the bed, his shoulders against the wall and his booted feet dipping off the edge of the mattress.

"Think he'll manage it?" Shepard asked.

"Who?"

"Wrex."

"You know," Garrus said, and laughed. "If anyone can kick that clan of his into shape, it's him."

"Yeah."

"He's a tough bastard. Tough enough to hold them together. They need him, and they know it."

"You're so astute sometimes."

He nudged her. "Only sometimes?"

"Yeah. Don't your spurs get in the way?"

"Sorry?"

Shepard laughed, a little unevenly. "The ones on your legs?"

"Yeah, I remember where they are," he said, drily. "No, they don't."

"Really?"

"Does your hair get in the way?"

"That's not a valid comparison." She moved beside him, turning slightly so that her shoulder touched his. "And anyway, mine did."

"Yeah." Garrus glanced sidelong at her, at the disheveled mess of her hair, at where the short dark strands fringed her temple and the slant of her cheekbone. "I don't know. I think I'm getting used to it."

"High praise," Shepard murmured, and he saw her smile.

Had there always been this softness in her, he wondered? This softness between them? He could feel the rhythm of her breathing, even and unhurried. He wrestled with himself a moment longer, and then he shifted, sliding down the wall slightly, so that he could lean the side of his head against the top of hers.

Quietly, she laughed. "You're too tall."

He breathed in slowly, and his mouth filled with her scent, skin and sweat and something slightly metallic and _her_. He could feel her hair against his mandibles and the underside of his jaw. "You're too short."

_"Oh, my father?" Garrus shook his head. "He, well. He wouldn't like you, Commander. I mean that as a compliment, I really do."_

_ "The Spectre thing or the human thing?"_

_ "The Spectre thing," he echoed, and found himself smiling slightly. "My father enjoys rules and structure. The idea that Spectres can dance their way around the law and are _meant_ to do that, well. He doesn't like it." _

_ "I get what he means," Shepard said. She slouched back in her seat, both feet propped up against the empty chair opposite. Under the mess hall lights, she looked tired, but then he supposed she'd looked tired since they'd left Noveria. "There's a place for that kind of structure. There's also a place for Spectres, I guess." _

_ "Yeah." He stared down at his hands, crossed on the table beside his empty dinner tray. "What about you, Commander?"_

_ She smiled then, as if she hadn't been expecting the question. "Yeah, we got on well," she said. "They both served fulltime, and I just fell into it because it's easy. Go from being a military brat to being a brat in the military. Turns out that I was actually quite good at it." _

_ "Did you see them much?"_

_ "No, not after I finished basic. Mom had her own command, and after Dad passed, we were stationed pretty far apart. She had this real adamant thing, Mom, that there'd be no way in hell that she'd get accused of anything approaching nepotism."_

_ "Did it work?"_

_ "Yeah. I think it worked. We talked, and mailed each other a lot. More after Dad passed." _

_ "Siblings?"_

_ "No. I'm a one and only," she said, and laughed. "You?"_

_ "Sister," he said. "Solana."_

_ "She as brick-headed as you?"_

_ "She's as tough as me, if that's what you mean. Smarter than me."_

_ "Should've recruited her," Shepard said. _

_ "Nah, she doesn't have my sense of wit and style." _

_ "Keep dreaming, Vakarian." _

No, Garrus thought, there'd always been the right words between them, spiky and sardonic and sometimes ridiculous, but there'd been the right amount of distance as well. He'd walked away from C-Sec for the first time and into a mostly human crew, and she'd been his CO, and that had been that. No, he thought again, and wondered at how his mind kept circling and chasing itself, his thoughts all slippery and traitorous. She'd been his friend, and he'd known it, and now she was curled into the sheltering press of his shoulder and he didn't want her to move.

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?

"I'm not too heavy, am I?"

"You worry too much."

"Yeah," he said. He wanted to say that he didn't have a fucking clue about what he was doing, but he figured that might be absurd. He wanted to say that she felt warm and strangely delicate beneath his shoulder, and he _knew_ that was absurd, because she was Shepard.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell me we'll get through this."

"Course we will. Anything we can't shoot, we can blow up."

Shepard laughed, and briefly, he almost wished he could see her face.

"Turian, I am holding you to that."

"Fair enough."

"You hungry yet?"

"I wouldn't say no," he answered. "Something about running around and trying not to get bludgeoned by krogan."

"Whets the appetite, huh?" Shepard said, and he felt it as her shoulders shook gently when she laughed again.

"That or that part where you shouted at that poor lost scout."

"I didn't shout."

"Okay. You gave him your opinion. Loudly."

"Very funny, Vakarian. Come on. We should go find dinner."

"Yeah, we should," he said, and he knew it was bullshit as soon as the words ran off his tongue. He didn't want to move, not really, not with the startling warmth of her against him.

Slowly, Shepard extricated herself from beneath the arch of his shoulder. She paused, her head lifting as she looked at him. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know," she said, and when she smiled, it seemed slightly faltering. "Come on. Food."

* * *

><p>"<em>We need that road clear, now. Right fucking now." <em>

_ But the ship was still slowly turning, its gun ports flaring bright and crimson. Beside her, Thompson was shaking, and she could hear him breathing, great heaving gasps. _

_ "Slow down," Shepard said, evenly. She pressed a canteen into his hand. "Drink. Slowly." _

_ He obeyed, swallowing down the water. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."_

_ "Okay. We need that out of the way, you hear me?" Before he could reply, she keyed her comm unit. "O'Niell, Shepard. Talk to me."_

_ "Bunkered down," he answered, his voice almost broken apart by the static. "We've got a sky full of them above us and more coming up the road."_

_ "I hear you. I've got one ship pissing me off and when that's done with, I'll get back to you."_

_ "Got it, Shepard. O'Neill out." _

_ She stared at the fading light of the comm unit for a long, wondering moment. "Alright," she said, less firmly. She unslung the rocket launcher and shoved it at Thompson. "I'm going to make a run for it. The ship."_

_ "Shepard?"_

_ "Don't think about it," she said. "Just keep your eye on his guns and before he sights on me, I want you shooting out his windshield, his gun ports, his engines, anything to keep him distracted." _

Shepard woke too quickly, the sheets in a deadlocked tangle around her waist. She swore and kicked them away.

Fucking Elysium, and she figured there was probably no point pretending she didn't know why she'd dreamed it. Not when she'd spent the best part of yesterday skulking around Tuchanka, with its ragged, broken walls and dust-filled craters and the crumpled bodies of the dead still there.

She'd made it to the ship, she remembered. Made it all the way across the uneven concrete and hurled a grenade right through the ripped-open windshield and heard the wrenching thump as it spiraled and ploughed into the ground.

Hell of a way to spend shore leave, she reckoned, and found herself smiling slightly.

In the shower she stood beneath the scalding blast of the water, eyes closed and hands fanned out against the wall. Afterwards, she glanced at the mirror long enough to push her fingers through her damp hair. She loitered on the bed, half aware of the clock as it flicked over silently, and the rest of her attention on the book spread open across her knees.

She heard footsteps on the other side of the door, and when the keypad flared, she jolted upright. "Garrus, that you?"

"Sorry," Tali answered. "It's me. Are you busy?"

"No, not at all," Shepard said, automatically. _She was going mad, obviously,_ she decided, _given the stupid way her stomach had lurched. _"It's unlocked."

The doors opened, and Tali paused, her hands twisting together. "I'm sorry. It's so early."

"It's okay." Shepard flipped the book closed. "I wasn't sleeping."

"No, me neither."

"Sit down, if you want. Or pace," Shepard said, and grinned. "Whichever's easier."

Tali laughed, uneven and strained. "Yes, well. It's the Admiralty Board."

"Yeah? They send your Haestrom data back to you covered in corrections?"

Tali laughed again, that sharp gasping noise that Shepard knew meant she was working herself past nervous and towards panic. "No," Tali said. "They, ah. They've charged me with treason."

"They've _what?_"

Tali nodded, and Shepard listened, and through the sudden angry fog in her head she heard how the message had dropped in midway through the night cycle, and how the Admiralty Board had been fucking less than helpful.

"That's it?" Shepard said. "Come now and earn the privilege to find out why they want to kick you out of the club?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, Shepard. I can, well. I keep track of the Flotilla, and I know they're near trade routes."

"Hey, _no_," Shepard said firmly. "You're not going anywhere on your own. You know damn well my ship will fall out of the clouds if you're not there to strap it back together. That and the shuttle took a hell of a dent yesterday on Tuchanka."

The twisting motion of Tali's fingers stilled. "Thank you," she said, very quietly.

"You know there's no way you'd be going on your own," Shepard said, gentler. "We'll head our way over there and we'll go ask them what the hell they think they're playing at."

"Thank you," Tali repeated. "Look, Shepard. There's some things I need to do."

"Get whatever you need sorted. I'll go prod Joker."

Left alone with the silence, and the closed door, Shepard lingered long enough to slide the book back into its place on the small shelf. Tali was exhausted, she knew, and she'd heard it in her voice, in the wrung-through, almost breathless way she'd spoken. _Never easy_, Shepard thought. Never easy to be ordered back in and told to fuck right off in the same sentence, and all the more painful when it came from home. _Freedom's Progress and Haestrom and now this and _hell_ Shepard knew it had to hurt._

She found Joker sprawled back in his chair, hands dangling, half-closed eyes on the sliding streams of the stars.

"Hey, Joker."

He flinched upright, his elbow brushing an empty mug balanced beside his chair. "Commander."

"Don't stop slouching on my account." She grinned and leaned against the back of his chair. "Tali should be sending you some co-ordinates."

"For anywhere nice?"

"The Flotilla."

"And here I was hoping for a casino. Or maybe just a bar."

"You never know what the week might bring." She straightened away from him and ran an amused glance over his workstation. "God almighty, Joker. You ever wash this mug?"

"Yeah. Once. It was my birthday."

"This year or last?"

"You're so funny, Commander."

"I know. Let me know when we change course."

* * *

><p>Shepard lasted through an hour of skimming through her reports before she surrendered and left them abandoned on her desk. She discovered Garrus in his quarters, and after she stepped across the threshold, she said, "And here I thought I'd find you welded to your favourite console."<p>

"I re-ran the algorithms and they took, first try." He straightened up, his head tilting and his blue eyes fixing on her, unerring and direct. "I'm scared that if I touch it anymore, it'll crap out on me again."

"Nice," Shepard remarked, drily. "We can avoid work together. I'm hiding from my reports."

"Isn't that what an XO is for?"

"Well, yeah, but I'd rather know in advance what I'm going to get blamed for." She shrugged, and almost awkwardly, she added, "Least if I've looked over it I can claim I know what the hell's going on."

"Yeah."

"You seen Tali yet this morning?"

"Yeah, earlier," Garrus said, and his tone lowered. "You worried?"

"Concerned." She pushed her knuckles against her forehead. "It's a hell of a thing, that kind of accusation. I'm just hoping there's nothing in it."

"And if there is?"

"Then we deal with it anyway. How did she seem, to you?"

"Frightened," he said, quietly. "She took herself back off down to engineering."

"Yeah."

"You can sit down, if you want."

She did, slowly, sitting cross-legged beside him. She remembered the afternoon after Tuchanka and how she'd ended up with her head nestled into his shoulder and the whole wonderful shielding weight of him against her.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't know a fucking thing about quarian politics."

"Don't worry," he said. "Neither do I."

Shepard spluttered into a laugh. "Thanks. That's so helpful."

"That's what I'm here for."

"Sure you are." She leaned into him then, gently, turning the side of her arm against his, and the twisting knot in her belly eased. She thought she heard him sigh. "I'm thinking this might be a _make it up as we go_ mission."

"That usually works, in my experience," Garrus said, his head dipping slightly so that she could look at the rigid angles of his face.

"Yeah," Shepard said. "Usually it does."


	12. Diplomacy

_As always, the biggest thank-you to everyone who's following this story or has it on alerts or favourites. And thank-you to TLTLI, whom I cannot thank directly :) As usual, Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twelve - Diplomacy**_

Treason, Shepard thought, was an ugly, blunt bitch of a word. In the high grey-walled chamber, all filled with the scent of damp greenery, she had seen how the accusation had shaken Tali enough that her shoulders had sagged. _Live geth_, Shepard thought. Charges of sending live geth back to the Flotilla, all prettily packaged so that her father could collect them and use them. Tali had shouted back that _no, she'd never done such a thing, they'd always been bits and pieces and this was _her father_ they were accusing as well. _

And when Tali's voice had faltered, the anger lashed Shepard up to her feet and now they were here, padding down the gleaming passageways of the _Alarei_.

"Movement," Garrus murmured.

"Yeah," Shepard answered. "I hear them. Catch them in the doorway."

"Got it."

_Frame them as they come marching around the corner, _she knew_, frame them and trap them and let their own piling weight block the metal bastards behind. _The ship was too narrow, too cramped, and already they'd found themselves backed into stifling corners too many times while the floor rang with the clamour of marching geth. Shepard uncoiled, shoving up to her feet and firing in the same motion. Her first volley sent one geth sprawling, its head shedding sparks until it thudded into the wall. Her second mowed through the two behind, and she held on, giving no ground until the fourth geth toppled, slim silver fingers going slack on its weapon.

"Clear," she called back over her shoulder. "Okay?"

"Yes," Tali said, from where she was crouched behind the corner. "There's a lot of them."

She heard the aching question in Tali's voice, and she understood. There was too much here that she still didn't know – that neither of them knew – and yet each silent, white-walled room gave up the dreadful evidence of dead quarians and Rael'Zorah's decision to network live geth. He'd done it out of desperation, and God knew there'd been a fair few decisions of her own that had come charging out all half-cocked because she was frantic.

_But this was about geth_, some sly thought prodded. _It was about geth and it was about letting his daughter do some of his dirty work and it was fucking unconscionable._

Slowly, carefully, they worked through the ship, edging their way through low-roofed labs and into waves of stampeding geth. They pushed hard and vicious and methodical, and more than once, Shepard shouted at the others to fall back, to dart away before they were swamped.

At the base of a stairwell, Shepard threw herself desperately against the side of the wall, her vision ruined when the side of a geth's weapon smacked hard into her helmet. Garrus' shots filled the gap behind her, and she straightened up in time to see the geth as it crumpled.

"Yeah," she said. "That was clever."

"Didn't we have a talk once about _not_ using your head to block attacks?"

"Yeah, yeah. You're so funny, Vakarian." She rolled her shoulders, aware of the slide of sweat beneath her armour. "Tali," she said, quieter. "You ready to move on?"

"Yes," Tali answered. "I think so."

* * *

><p>When they found Rael'Zorah, Garrus heard Tali's choked-out gasp and wondered if she'd ever really believed she'd find him alive. She couldn't've, not really, not with the way the <em>Alarei<em> was already a floating graveyard, but he knew that hope could be a poisonous, insidious thing.

"No," Tali mumbled. "He always…there was always a plan. Something else. There _has_ to be something else."

"Hey," Shepard said, very gently, and then she was kneeling beside Tali, winding her arms around Tali's back, and pulling Tali against the slope of her shoulder.

Garrus swallowed. Battlefield grief, he thought, and he knew it had to hurt.

_The dreadful needling knowledge that you can't stand there too long, not long enough at all, because there's too much to do, and you have to keep moving even if you think the pain of it all might surge up and swallow you._

"Hey," Shepard said again, and her gloved hands linked across Tali's back. "You okay?"

"Yes." For a long moment, Tali stayed where she was, clinging to Shepard, and Garrus heard the strained rasp of her breathing. "Yes. Thank you."

Slowly, she slipped clear of Shepard's arms. She reached for Rael'Zorah's arm, her hands shaking slightly, and keyed his omni-tool into life. Her father's voice filled the stillness, soft and unhurried and Garrus found himself staring down at the space between his boots.

He heard her father's words, words about a future, and a homeworld some day, and necessary risks, and a main hub to blow sky-high. Words that _had_ to lacerate, and when he finally made himself look up and into Shepard's face, he saw that her eyes were as hard as he guessed his own were.

"Thanks, Dad," Tali murmured. She straightened up, squaring her shoulders. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"We need to get to the main hub."

"Yeah." Shepard hesitated, her hands tightening on her rifle. "You're okay?"

"I'll be okay."

"Okay. Slow and steady as before. Let's not rush this. Garrus?"

"Right behind you," he said.

The ship's main hub proved to be crawling with geth, and Garrus settled his shoulder back against the doorway and lifted his sniper rifle. He was aware of Shepard, an armoured blur as she hurtled past him, her first controlled volley of fire spraying into a towering geth. Tali followed up, flanking her, her shotgun flaring bright and methodical and fast. Garrus twisted, keeping the rifle tight against him and his eye on the scope as he moved. Slender and tall and silvery, a geth glided into his vision, and he squeezed the trigger. The geth toppled away from the scope, half its head ripped away. He was moving again before he heard it hit the floor, lining up on the huge hulking bastard of a geth who'd backed itself into the far corner.

Shepard fired, again and again, and the volley gnawed at the geth's flickering shields. She swore, flinging herself back against the wall as its rifle lowered and swung. Another burst sent it staggering. Garrus waited, unblinking, while she dived sideways again. She cleared his sightline and reflexively, he fired. The shot burrowed into the geth's sparking chestplate and it collapsed.

"Nice timing," Shepard said, as she rolled back up to her feet.

"Just helping out," he answered, in the same slightly teasing tone.

She yanked her helmet off, raking gloved fingers through her hair. "Tali," she said, between measured breaths. "What are you thinking?"

"Don't tell them," Tali replied, quietly. "We can't. He was my father. If we tell them what he – what he was doing, what he was trying to do – they'll cut his name from every ship he ever served on."

Slowly, Shepard nodded. "And if I do that, what happens to you?"

"I don't know."

"Okay." She exhaled, and Garrus saw it as her face hardened. "Then I guess I'll go talk to them."

"Nicely?" Garrus said, and nudged her.

"As nicely as they've talked to us," Shepard said, and grinned.

Tali stayed silent on the shuttle, and even after they cleared the docking gates at the _Rayya_ again. Shepard flanked her, and Garrus fell into step behind them both. Wordlessly, the same marine detail marched them back towards the high open chamber that smelled like a forest.

"Okay," Shepard murmured, and her hand brushed Tali's elbow.

"Yes," Tali answered, and Garrus saw her shoulders tighten. "Yes. I'm ready."

Shepard paused, twisting so that she could look back at him. He met her level dark gaze and nodded, and her expression softened slightly.

"Captain Shepard?" At the open doorway, one of the marines gestured. "They've started."

"Then we'd better go get caught up," Shepard snapped. "Since it so happens that we're not actually dead."

The chamber rang with the din of raised voices, words crashing into each other, and the sharp crack of feet against the metal walkways. _Bureaucrats_, Garrus thought. Bureaucrats who acted the same the whole damn universe over, too concerned with the empty sound of their own useless words.

Shepard strode down the walkway, Tali beside her, and slowly, the silence rippled out around them until the chamber hushed.

"Sorry we're late," Tali said, challengingly, and Garrus bit back the urge to smile.

"Captain Shepard? You are ready to speak?"

"Yeah," Shepard answered. She rested her hands on the metal rail, fingers lightly clasped. Fiercely, she said, "Yeah, I am. I'm going to tell you about one of the most loyal crewmembers I've ever had, and you're all going to listen to me."

* * *

><p>"You know," Garrus said, from where he was slouched on the bench against the far wall. "I still can't believe you didn't shoot the mouthy bastard."<p>

"Which one, Zaal'Koris?" Shepard rubbed her knuckles against the tight strain in her forehead. "Yes, that would've proven Tali's innocence so very well."

Tali laughed, softly. Carefully, she typed in another run of commands and watched as the console flared orange in response. "It might have made them all listen a little better."

"Hey," Shepard said, genially. "You're complaining now?"

"Not at all," Tali replied. "It's fun watching you shout."

"I didn't shout."

"You shouted," Garrus said.

"Yeah, well." Shepard grinned. "A little."

Tali stared at the screen for a long moment. "Is that better?"

"Smoother," Donnelly answered, half-muffled where he knelt beneath the computer bank on the opposite wall. "Much smoother."

"Okay. Pin it back together and we'll have a look from the outside," Tali said.

"You know," Shepard remarked. "You can stop working. You've had a full day. I can sign off officially on it if you want."

"It keeps my hands busy," Tali said, quieter.

"And it makes us look lazy as hell. I get it," Shepard said mildly.

"Okay," Donnelly mumbled, and straightened up. He slipped the panel back into place, his fingers sliding along the edges. "Okay?"

"Very nice," Tali told him.

Donnelly straightened up, the pale angles of his face softening into a pleased smile. "So, it was, well. Okay?"

"It will be," Tali said. Her head lifted slightly, and Shepard wondered what she might be thinking.

_She's thinking she misses her father_, Shepard thought, almost angrily. _She's thinking she shouldn't've had to see him dead on the floor of his ship. __She's thinking that at least some of her own people thought it might not be a bad end to a political mess if none of them had stepped off the _Alarei _alive_. Fury or silence, it was expected and it would burrow into her like acid, even now, Shepard knew, even back here amid the safe cocoon of the machines and systems she made dance beneath her hands.

"Hey," Shepard said. "You need anything else?"

"No." Tali's hands slackened on the console. "Thank you, Shepard. So much. I've never…well, I've never had anyone speak for me like that. Thank you."

Whatever sardonic, irrelevant thing she wanted to retort with died in her throat. "You're very welcome," she said. "And that, I think, is our cue to leave. Come on, Vakarian. We can go waste time elsewhere."

* * *

><p>Garrus ran a critical eye over the stack of ammo packs in his gear locker. He moved on to the meticulously arranged field rations, and the back-up pair of pistols that he rarely used. He could never quite decide if it was a finicky bad habit or a <em>really<em> good one, but he supposed he'd prefer to know the status of his gear should the _Normandy_ come barreling out of a relay and into the cannons of another Collector ship.

The _same_ Collector ship, he corrected himself. The same damn one, stalking Shepard between systems as casually as he'd once tracked suspects. There was nowhere for that thought to go, he knew, not now, not yet, not while they were working themselves towards plunging after the IFF.

He'd simmered his way through long-wait missions before, and the unhelpfully logical half of his mind knew that he had to shove it to one side, the IFF and the Collectors and the Omega-4 relay.

He snapped the locker closed and turned away. Earlier, he'd taken himself back down to engineering and checked on Tali again. He'd left a dinner tray with Donnelly and brisk instructions to make sure she damn well ate something, even if she put up a fight first.

He leaned down, tightening the buckles on his boots. He hesitated for another long moment, his eyes on the clock. _Screw it_, he thought, almost amused at himself. Not like he'd got anything better to do, and he was sure that if he stuck around in the stifling quiet of his quarters any longer, he'd only dredge up an even more feeble excuse.

He found Shepard's door unlocked, and he stepped over the threshold and into soft, pooling light. He looked at the desk and the steps and the couch and did not see her. "Shepard? You in here?"

"Out in a minute," she called, from behind the closed bathroom door. "Sit down. Stop hovering or whatever it is you're doing."

He laughed. "Like you can see through walls now."

He sat on the edge of the bed and waited, his hands clasped. When she finally emerged, steam billowed through the door behind her. Her hair was still damp and clinging to the slant of her cheekbones. She was paler than normal, he thought, and then he realised that she was wearing very little. Shorts and a high-necked sleeveless vest and nothing else, and her bare feet seemed very strange and white against the floor.

"Garrus? You're gawping."

"No, I'm not."

"Are my shorts that awful?"

"Your feet," he said, and cringed. "I meant…not how that sounded. I've just never seen your feet before."

She laughed, full-throated and properly. "They're not particularly pretty, but feel free to stare if it makes you feel better."

"You always make me feel so welcome."

"That's what I'm here for."

Briefly he wondered what the hell _he_ was here for, but she sat beside him, and the damp clean scent of her skin clung to the inside of his mouth.

"You catch up with Tali?" Shepard asked.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did. She's, well. I guess she'll be okay."

"I keep thinking about her father."

"Yeah?"

"Misguided idiot," Shepard said, quietly. "He should've known not to involve her at all. It was a clusterfuck waiting to happen. And hey, I can say that because I don't live in permanent exile while trying to work out how the hell to get my homeworld back."

"Yeah," Garrus said. "I know what you mean."

She dug one hand through her hair, and he watched as water droplets ran down the slope of her cheek.

"Shepard, I…"

"Yeah," she said, hurriedly, cutting across him.

"You're sure you're not busy?"

"Utterly," she retorted wryly. "Though I can honestly say that all paperwork is beaten back and defeated." She turned, her head lifting so that he could see her eyes properly, soft and dark and leveled at him. "You don't have to stick around."

"I didn't say that."

Her mouth curved up into a slow smile. "We're really bad at this."

"Yeah," he said, and it came out as a relieved kind of sigh. He wanted to ask what _this_ might actually _be_, but the fluttering uncertainty that had taken up residence in his gut again suggested that he damn well knew. "Got to have something to be bad at. Otherwise we'd be perfect."

Shepard spluttered into a laugh. "Good God almighty. That was a _terrible_ line."

"Yeah, well. Even I have my off days."

"Everyone does," she said, and when she settled herself against his shoulder, something inside him gave way. "I forgive you."

"Thanks," Garrus replied, drily. "I'm overcome."

He fought for something else to say, but the silence stretched and drowned words and thought. He was too aware of the soft press of her skin against the side of his arm, warm against his fatigues. He let himself look at her crossed legs, at the mottled scars that swirled across one thigh and marked both shins.

Strange, he thought, to see her all pared down to damp skin and bowed head and wet hair. Strange and wonderful all at once and slowly, he eased his arm around her waist.

"Is that okay?"

"Yeah," Shepard answered, whisper-quiet. "It's okay."

He kept his hand still, very still, just grazing the side of her vest. Beneath, he could feel the corded lines of her muscles when she breathed. Abruptly he wondered if she was like that all over and desperately, he tried to chase the thought from his mind.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You been thinking about the Omega-4 relay at all?"

"No."

"Liar," she told him mildly.

"Yeah, well." He looked at the top of her head, at the glossy mop of her hair. "I've been thinking about it in that I've been trying _not_ to think about it."

"Working?"

"No," he said, lightly. "Not at all."

"Me neither. I keep thinking that it'd be better if I didn't know about it. Not until we have to go through it."

"Yeah? You're really trying to say that Ilos was the best way to do it?"

"No," she said, and sighed. "I don't know what I'm saying. That was a mess, too. Different kind of mess."

"Yeah, I know." He'd paced and seethed and worried the night before the jump to Ilos, he remembered. He'd quartered his cabin again and again until he'd almost convinced himself he wasn't fucking terrified at the thought of coming up against Saren again. "We'll get through it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, unless we try to go through the relay and the whole ship explodes. Or something."

Shepard laughed, her shoulders trembling. "Thanks for that. You always know just what to say."

"You're welcome."

* * *

><p>Shepard lay beneath rumpled sheets and glared at the clock. The night cycle was crawling away from her second by seeping second, and <em>still<em>, she hadn't slept. She rolled over and buried herself half under the pillows.

Garrus had left three hours ago, and even after she'd distracted herself with her book and a quick once-over of the paperwork she needed to throw in Lawson's direction, sleep had eluded her. The darkness seemed too grey, too faded, and she could see the edge of the desk and the panels in the walls and the light from the aquarium was tauntingly soft.

_Do something_, she thought, and kicked the sheets away in surrender. She had thought that it would have soothed her, Garrus sitting beside her, soothed and calmed and made her feel reassured and understood. He'd been spending nearly every evening up here, or else she had imposed herself down in his quarters – _not that either of them seemed to mind all that much_ – and it had somehow become as much a part of her routine as checking over her armour.

She could go hunt down one of the treadmills, she supposed, or else shadow-spar her way towards exhaustion. The mess hall was never empty, and she knew she could loiter a couple of hours away over hot tea and idle conversation. She dragged her fatigues back on, and even as she buckled her boots into place, she knew she was bullshitting herself.

The lower-deck corridors were empty and sparsely lit, this late, and Shepard had grown up on enough ships to be careful enough to walk deliberately quietly.

She should've asked EDI if he was still up. She should've stayed in her own quarters and let him rest. She should've talked to him earlier when they were both sitting on the end of her bed, half wrapped around each other's warmth.

Shepard paused in front of his door, her hand hovering over the control pad. "Garrus, you awake?"

"Yeah, hang on."

The doors slid open, and she looked up into the severe planes of his face. "Pleased to see me?"

"Always," he answered, very quickly.

Shepard swallowed. _Utterly mad_, she thought, given the way heat was curling and threading through her just from his fucking _voice_. "Hey," she said. "I was wondering. Could I come in?"

"Sure. You're okay?"

"Yeah. I was wondering. Can we talk?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered, quieter. "Course we can."


	13. Refuge

_As always, the biggest thank-you to everyone who's keeping up with this story - thank you all so much for your thoughts and support. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirteen – Refuge**_

Shepard stepped over the threshold and awkwardly, she hovered while Garrus closed the door again, his long fingers moving deftly over the keypad.

"Look. Garrus, I," she started.

"Yeah," he said, as unevenly.

The silence rose up and swallowed her and painfully, she wondered if she'd managed to get it all wrong. _No_, she thought, almost desperately. _Can't've_, since she'd just come from rumpled sheets that still smelled of him, of both of them together. "Have I fucked this up?"

"What?"

"_This_," she said. "Whatever this is. Us."

"Oh," Garrus breathed, and his whole frame seemed to soften somehow. "No. No, you haven't."

"Good. Because I was lying there just thinking it over and then I wondered if I was over-thinking it again. And whether or not it was all in my head. Or if you were just being nice to me because you thought you had to." The words ran off her tongue, faltering and clumsy and far too fast. "So I thought I'd come bother you about it."

"That's okay," he said, low-toned, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Good," she said again. Before her nerves could abandon her entirely, she leaned up and kissed the side of his face. _Rough and not skin, not really, not the way she was used to, and he'd never feel human,_ and suddenly she was aware that her heart was hammering.

"Shepard," Garrus said. "It's just…I've never, with a human, I mean. I mean, I've done it plenty of times with turians."

The tension in her belly coiled and broke and she laughed. "Is this the part where I get to find out how much of a stud you were with all the ladies back home?"

"What makes you think I wasn't?"

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Fine figure of a turian. Spiky bits all accounted for."

He moved, his head dipping so he could rest his forehead against hers. "And that's not condescending at all."

"Yeah," she said. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"We're very different."

"I know," he said. Very gently, he slid the side of his face against hers. "You're far too soft."

"You're far too rough," she retorted, in the same teasing tone.

"You're right," Garrus said, and she felt the edges of his jaw and mouth shift against her cheek. "We're different. Very different. But, Shepard, I…you're the only friend I've got in this screwed-up galaxy. If you're serious, then, well. I'm serious."

_So strange_, she thought. Strange to be standing this close to him, to feel him breathing against her, to be breathing in time with him. Strange to hear the words strung out between them, the irrevocable febrile truth.

"You know," she murmured. "I have to admit I'm rather relieved. I thought you were going to pat me on the head and tell me to go back to bed."

"You're far too intimidating for that."

"You're so funny."

"I know." He shifted, straightening up and away from her. Almost tremulously, he lifted one hand, and asked, "Can I?"

Wordlessly, she nodded.

Slowly, haltingly, he touched the side of her face, then the slope of her neck. "You're warm."

She could feel him shaking slightly, three fingers stroking back across her throat, resting against her collar_. _"Garrus?"

He cupped his palm under her chin. "Yeah?"

"That feels very good." She leaned into the cradling pressure of his hand. "This is weird, though, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Never had a thing for humans."

"Nice."

"I have my moments, Shepard." As slowly, he drew his hand away, taking hers with him, and pressed her fingers against his face. "Touch me?"

She felt him let go of her, and found that she was grinning like an idiot. Carefully, she explored the hard angles of his face. She worked her way around to the softer skin at the base of his neck, and gently brushed her fingers under the edge of his fringe.

"Feels good?"

"Feels _very_ good." He leaned into her, nuzzling his forehead against hers. "Are we crazy?"

"Probably." She kissed the side of his face again, enjoying the odd, rough texture. "You want to take things slow?"

"Yeah. For the best, I think."

She slipped her fingers inside his collar, and he sighed, his breath coming warm and soft against her throat. "You're probably right."

"Yeah." His arms wound cautiously around her waist, and he settled her against his chest. "Besides, I, uh…will probably need to go do some research."

Shepard spluttered into a laugh. "Garrus Vakarian, finally finding a legitimate excuse to watch bad porn?"

He groaned. "Be nice."

With her face still pressed against the hard lines of his chest, she laughed again. "Sorry. I might have to as well, actually. It _is_ possible though, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I just…Shepard. What if…?"

"What if you take your clothes off and I really don't like what I see? What if I take my clothes off and it does nothing for you?"

His teeth clicked. "Yeah."

"I don't scare easily, Garrus. We'll just have to take it slowly."

"Yeah." He rested his forehead against hers. "I'd like that. Shepard?"

"Mmm?"

"Didn't know you had a weakness for men with scars."

"Got a weakness for _you_, Vakarian."

He touched her shoulder, and her chin, the softer undersides of his fingers rasping against her skin. "I never thought…Okay. You know you said about not scaring easily?"

"Yeah."

"Well, when I heard you were dead. Shepard, I…it felt like I was gut-shot."

"Hey." She smoothed her fingertips across the steep ridges of his face. "Hey. It's alright. We're here. Both of us."

"I know. Can we sit down?"

Shepard laughed, spluttering and unguarded. She nodded, and let him guide her onto the end of the bed. Awkwardly, he sprawled back and she half-crawled onto him, so that she had one arm braced across his middle. His hand curved against her waist, and he murmured, "What are you doing?"

"Climbing all over you." She tilted her head. "Actually I wanted to look at you. Properly."

"You are looking at me."

"I know." With her free hand, she traced the bold blue lines of his markings. "And I just realised I might have violated some cultural thing. Is it okay to touch them?"

Garrus laughed, his whole frame shaking beneath her. "Yeah. It's okay. I promise it won't incite a war."

She repeated the motion, sliding the pad of her thumb across the rough skin. Slowly, he mirrored her, his fingers grazing her cheekbones and the lift of her chin and the rapid beat of her pulse beneath.

"So," he said, his hand flat against the side of her neck. "We're really going to do this?"

"Well, not _right now_," she said, and grinned.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah," she said, quieter. She levered herself up and swung her other leg across his thighs. Carefully, she settled herself onto his lap and felt him shudder in response. "Yeah. We are. As long as you want to."

"Yeah." He bowed his head against hers, and the uneven ridges on his face dug against her cheek. "I want to."

Not hurrying, Shepard wound her arms around the back of his neck. She leaned into him, so that his chest and his legs and the curve of his collar was pressed against her. He was all angles, rough and rigid and severe. She could feel his heartbeat, uneven and jumping whenever she breathed against the side of his neck.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"This is weird, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Really weird."

"I like it."

"Yeah." His arms tightened around her, his hands roaming up and down the arch of her back. "So do I."

She leaned, tipping them both sideways onto the sheets. Garrus' hand ran down to the slight dip of her waist and stayed there, heavy and warm. His other arm curled around her shoulders.

"This isn't uncomfortable?"

"No," she answered. "Feel like I could lie here all night."

"Shift change."

"Bastard," she said, and kissed the side of his face. "Always with the logic."

Slowly, he traced his hand up to her shoulder and back down to her hip, never straying below. "Someone has to be."

"Fine," she said. She yawned, half-stifling it against his shoulder. "Lying here til shift change."

* * *

><p>She was sleeping, Garrus realised, or drifting very near to it, her face relaxed and softened, pillowed against the crook of his elbow. This close, he could see the arcs of her eyelashes, and the tiny scar on her chin, and the longer one that tracked down the side of her neck.<p>

Absurdly, his heartbeat was still thundering.

Thundering as it had been since she'd stepped into his quarters and looked up at him with _something_ in her face, something fierce and burning and uncertain and something that had let him think that maybe it wasn't just _him_ who was slowly going mad.

She was warm in his arms, and his hand fit far too well against the slight flare of her hip.

"You still staring at me?" Shepard asked, drowsily.

"Yeah," he admitted.

"That stunning, huh?"

"This close," he said, and coughed. "I mean, yeah. I've never seen you this close."

"Yeah," she murmured. Her eyes opened, dark and trained on him, and she smiled. "Me, I'm still fixating on the fact that I'm technically in bed with you."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"No," she said, and he felt the pressure of her hand against his face, lingering over his markings again. "Just surprising."

"Shepard. You bludgeoned your way in here. What did you think was going to happen?"

"And here I thought I was being all subtle and innocent."

"Sure you did," he said, half-laughing.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Feels like nothing's changed and everything's changed. Make sense at all?"

"Yeah," he said. He leaned his head into the side of her throat and breathed her in, clean skin and creased fatigues and the slightest tang of sweat. He felt a tremor run through her, and her hand caught against the back of his neck, holding him there. As carefully, Garrus tightened his arms around her so that they were pressed together. He could feel the shape of her, all lean muscle and wiry strength. "Yeah," he said again. "It does."

Very gently, he mouthed at the side of her neck, and then at the delicate place beneath her jaw. Her skin yielded beneath the slight pressure of his teeth. She shuddered against him, her breathing coming hard and rapid.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," Shepard murmured. Her fingers brushed against the back of his neck again, exploring, travelling up and under his fringe. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Let me look at you."

Almost reluctantly, he extricated himself from the tangle of her arms and legs. "You know what I look like," he said, mildly.

"Not like this," she said, and he understood.

Not like this, with nothing between them except clothes and the prickling nervousness that still swam in his gut. Not like this, all coiled together on his _bed_ and suddenly his pulse was racing again.

Slowly was good, he thought. Slowly would give him time to think it through and give both of them time to settle into this – _whatever this was – _this lurching, exhilarating _something_ that had its claws sunk in him.

Slowly was good, but _hell_ he could still feel her curled up against him, the small unusual curve of her hip and the way her shoulder was lined up against one of his arms.

"So," Shepard said, and her fingertips skimmed just beneath the edge of his scars. "No humans before?"

"I already said that."

"I know."

"No turians?"

"No one not human."

"No?"

"Don't sound so surprised," she said, and flicked at the bridge of his nose. "I spent years being booted around the galaxy by the Alliance. I didn't get around to fraternizing with the locals."

Garrus laughed. "Isn't that one of the perks?"

"Apparently," she said, and her laughter joined his. "That wasn't funny."

"I know," he conceded. Almost curiously, he regarded her, her face open and unfettered. "Can I touch your hair?"

"Swoon-worthy," she said, archly. She reached out, thin fingers circling the back of his wrist. "Go ahead. It won't break, I promise."

"Very funny." He pushed his fingers through the short, unkempt thatch of her hair. Soft and silken and the strands seemed to push _back_ against his palm. His hand cupped over the back of her head, fingertips kneading against her scalp, and she sighed. "Okay?"

"Very okay." She surged against him, and he felt the startling damp warmth of her mouth again, against his jaw and the side of his face, and the ridges above his eyes. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You going to be disappointed if I do actually fall asleep?"

"It's the middle of the night. It wouldn't be too much out of character."

"Thank you for that vote of confidence."

"You're welcome." He hooked his arm around her waist again, pulling her against his chest until they were cleaved together. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Would it be weird to say thank you for coming down here?"

"_Way_ too weird."

"I won't say it, then."

"Good," she said, and buried her head against his shoulder.

* * *

><p>Shepard surfaced from odd, shifting dreams and found herself still in Garrus' arms, her head turned into his shoulder. She had one arm half beneath him and almost numb, and the other hand clasped through his.<p>

"Hey," she said, gently. "You alive?"

"No," he mumbled. Slowly, he opened his eyes, blue and piercing and predatory. "Yeah."

"You're such a morning person. Turian."

"It's not morning. Not really."

"Yeah, yeah." She tried to hide her smile, failed, and kissed the line of his jaw. "Hey. Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You want to do the talk?"

"Oh. Yeah." He nuzzled at the side of her face, the ridges of his mandibles rubbing against her skin. "Keeping this to ourselves?"

"Yeah. I think so. No reason for our employers to know."

"They'll know eventually. It's a ship."

And a ship was about as watertight as punctured paper, she knew, especially when it came to the racing wildfire that was gossip. "I know. Just no reason to go out and announce. And _no_," she said, cupping her hand under his chin. "Not because I think we should be keeping it hidden because, you know. Because we're different."

"I didn't think that."

"Yeah, you did."

"You're the one in bed with me."

"Stubborn turian." She met his lopsided grin. "Let's just let it go quietly."

"Yeah. I know what you mean." He tilted his head into her hand. "Shepard. It's fine. _This_ is fine."

She smiled, and ridiculously, the relief washed through her. "Good."

"I mean, I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but it's fine."

"I'm sure we'll figure it out."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she echoed. She rolled against him, bringing one leg up around his waist. The jut of his hip dug against the inside of her thigh, and she could feel the maddening, delicious heat between them.

"_Oh_," Garrus murmured. "That's good." His hands slipped up, cradling the back of her head. "You tease."

"Yeah. Forgive me?"

"I'll manage. Somehow."

"What time is it?"

He told her, and she grimaced.

"Already?" Shepard sighed. She rested both hands flat on his chest. "I want to stay here. It feels good."

"Yeah, it does." Garrus leaned into the bowed arch of her neck, his forehead rough and angular against her skin. "I'll still be here later."

"You'll be out shooting things with me later. No rest for the wicked."

"And here I thought it had to do with me being such a great shot."

"That too," she said. She could feel him breathing against her, easy and unhurried. "We need to get up."

"Yeah," Garrus answered, and when he straightened up, he pulled her up after him so that she was still in his arms. "I guess we do."

"You know," she murmured. "You're not making this any easier."

"Forgive me?"

"Somehow." She touched the ridges beneath his eyes, bright with his markings. He was looking at her, looking at her in the same unwavering fierce way he had since she'd stepped through the door, and something inside her twisted. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"My quarters next time."


	14. Respite

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Life is a little busier at the moment - my university semester has started up again - so updates may be a little further apart, but they will still stay consistent. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Fourteen – Respite**_

Morning saw Shepard in the CIC, her wrists crossed on the rail by the constellation charts, and her gaze on the bright display above. "Okay," she said, and nodded. "We're not far out. Let Joker know which way to point the ship, and we'll check it out."

"Good," Lawson said. "EDI tells me the settlement is attached to the archaeological dig below the surface."

"Tunnels," Shepard said. "Okay. We can go crawling around in the dark and mop it up fast. Should be simple."

"Thank you, Commander. I'll speak to Joker."

Three hours later, Shepard planted her shoulders against damp stone, swore, and briefly wondered if she could just outright reject any other requests to hop down planetside to some tiny floating rock on the strength of a warbling transmission.

"Jack," she called. "Knock them over for me."

She heard Jack's shouted response, and then the sputtering whiplash as she swept the energy across the rough stone slabs. Shepard twisted upright and squinted through the glare, bringing her rifle against her shoulder in the same motion. The husks toppled – _snarling and spitting and crackling with that odd jumping silver pulse – _and Shepard spun, leveling her rifle at the next wave of them as they surged between the leaning pillars.

_Husks, _she thought, and battled down the instinctive revulsion. They were _things_, things that _had been_, not creatures still breathing, not properly, and the distinction made her skin prickle. She'd seen them on Eden Prime that first time, lumbering out from between the towering white spikes that the geth had rammed them onto like so much meat.

Another heave of biotic energy rippled through the pillars, and her follow-up volley sent another two of them sprawling, their thin fingers sliding slack against the ground.

"Garrus, your side clear?" Shepard asked.

"Getting there," he responded. "There's plenty of them."

"Yeah. Keep it slow and easy and I'll meet you in the middle."

"I'll be there first," Garrus said, and she heard the challenging smile in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah. Keep dreaming."

She allowed herself a small smile before she vaulted over the next fallen slab. The air was clammy and musty and she wondered how long they'd been trapped down here.

_They'd shrieked_, she remembered. Shrieked and howled when she and Taylor had wrenched the final door open, and the light had slanted in, and then she'd become aware of them, the husks, and the spitting, hissing sound of them as they moved and rippled and spilled out of the inky darkness.

More of them waited beyond the pillars, and after Jack sent them running and staggering, Shepard mowed through them, her finger pressing and releasing on the trigger in short, directed bursts. It was too much like slaughter, she thought, when they milled around and screeched, and some small part of her mind almost wished they'd get themselves together and _attack_.

They had on Eden Prime, and on the Citadel, when they'd flooded the engineering tunnels, the metallic clamour of their voices uneven and rough.

She pushed on, Jack close behind, and she darted through the last pair of pillars in time to see another husk topple, the back of its head blown out. She fired, and another two collapsed, their legs sagging out from beneath them.

"I win?" Shepard asked, and grinned.

"Tie," Garrus responded. He emerged from behind a tangle of fallen stone, Taylor beside him. "All clear?"

"Yeah. All done." She scanned the low-roofed chamber again, all pillars and stifling dampness. "You know, just for once, it'd be nice to stumble upon some tiny mining outpost and find that they _haven't_ gone and gotten themselves turned into sparkling blue husks. Or whatever."

"Yeah," Garrus said. "But then we wouldn't've followed their signal, and we wouldn't be here."

"Logic again," she said, archly. "Here I am wishing for a better universe, and you're being all sensible."

"Very funny."

"You know it. Taylor?"

"Commander?"

"Let's unpack those nice pretty explosives and bury this place."

* * *

><p>The shower at full-blast stripped away the grime and the sweat and the clinging, clammy scent of the darkness. Head bowed beneath the water, Shepard remembered Eden Prime, and how she'd had that awful, lurching <em>no-they-aren't<em> reaction to the needlepoint spikes that _altered_.

_Some of them were still there, and she could see them if she looked up, hanging with their arms and legs arched and dangling. The spikes were striped with their blood, and part of her wondered how many more people had already been changed. _

_ The spikes smelled the same way the husks did, metallic and electric and humming slightly. _

_ "Shepard," Alenko said, very quietly. "You ever seen anything like this before?"_

_ "No," she answered. "Never." _

_ "There's more," Williams said. "Other side of the dig. They came off those spikes like something in them was on fire, and they just ran with the geth."_

_ Ran like they were being corralled and prodded and ordered onwards, and Shepard wondered if their minds were as empty as their eyes. _

Briskly, she toweled herself dry. She noticed a new bruise, blooming across the back of her calf, and the middle of her shoulders still ached slightly. She ambled out and into the main sweep of her quarters in time to hear the comm station buzz.

She leaned on the button. "Yeah?"

"Hey, it's me." Garrus' voice wavered slightly, and he added, "Garrus, I mean."

"Strangely enough, I tend to recognize your voice," she told him, teasingly. "You're the only guy on the ship who has a voice that does that weird thing."

"It's not weird. It's perfectly natural. Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"You busy?"

She bit back the sudden urge to laugh. "Not at all. Come up."

"Oh." She heard the soft sigh as he exhaled. "Good."

She found clean clothes, grey shorts and a faded vest, and after she tugged them on, she waited on the couch, her knees drawn up and a book balanced across them. When the door slid open, he paused, his feet scuffling against the floor.

"Any good?"

"The book? Nah, but I'll read anything, and there's a shitload of gratuitous violence that's keeping me distracted so far." Unceremoniously, she folded the corner of the page and dropped the book onto the table. "Garrus," she said, and grinned. "You're hovering."

His mandibles flared into a smile. "Yeah," he said. "I know. I just…don't know what to do. With myself. Right now."

"Well, if you really want, you can come over here. I might even be up for a bit of sitting on top of you, if want."

He laughed, his shoulders shifting beneath his blue fatigues. "That's incentive if ever I heard it."

"Damn right it is." She folded her arms around her shins. "Look, Garrus. I don't want to push this. Or push you. Okay?"

"Yeah. I know." He sat beside her, his shoulder curving against hers. Almost timidly, he pressed his fingers through the disheveled thatch of her hair. "I think I was thinking too much about it."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Getting out of my armour, I was thinking, well, should I come straight up here? Should I wait for you to ask? I mean, you're my CO, and, well." Helplessly, he laughed. "And I'm not making much sense."

Shepard leaned into the gentle pressure of his hand. She kissed his palm, and the rough pads of his fingertips. "I'm also your friend."

"Yeah."

"And shouldn't friends have a duty to make their friends deliberately uncomfortable?"

"Not uncomfortable," he said, and his tone roughened. His fingers slid down the slope of her cheek. "Nervous. Not uncomfortable."

She smiled, and tried to shove away a sudden, absurd rush of excitement. "Yeah. Me too."

"Bullshit," Garrus said, sounding mildly affronted. "Nothing scares you."

"Deep water, when I was younger."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I can make myself twitch just thinking about it even now." Thoughtfully, she wove her fingers around his. His skin was rough and he had too few fingers and when she ran the edge of her thumb against his talons, he pulled away.

"Careful," Garrus said.

"Sorry. I was just exploring."

"I don't suppose reminding you that I'm not a science project would help?"

"No," she said, and lifted his hand again. She stared at the back of it, and the way the elegant bones of his wrist tapered. "Not at all."

"Tell me about deep water."

"It's completely irrational," she explained, and shrugged. "It's the _water_, not that there might be big things with teeth in it, which would be slightly more rational."

"How'd you find out?"

"We all took water survival in basic, and all my nightmares manifested themselves. It was embarrassing. In the end of course, the water didn't actually eat me alive."

"Shocking."

"Took me by surprise," she said. Almost absently, she pushed his sleeve cuff back. The raised, rough edges of his skin vanished beneath the fabric, and she brushed her fingers across them. "You're tough."

"Thanks."

"I mean your skin." She shot him a glare. "Are you like that all over?"

"Mostly," Garrus answered, and his breathing hitched. "What about you?"

She meant to say something stupid, something that might make him laugh. Something about elegant curves and the gates of heaven and skin like velvet. Instead, she blurted, "Scars. New ones. From Cerberus. They put me back together and couldn't even give me my old ones."

"Shepard," Garrus said, and hauled her against him.

She clung to him, her head buried somewhere against his chest. She was aware of the sharp angles of his body, and how his hips were all wrong, and when she reached up to wrap her arms around him, the width of his neck seemed far too wide. But he was _Garrus_, and he was breathing in time with her, and his hands were moving over the back of her head.

She moved, twisting against him and pushing until they were both sprawled across the couch. One of Garrus' hands slid down to the small of her back, gently kneading. She found the base of his neck and stroked up until her fingers slipped beneath his fringe. "Is that alright?"

Beneath her, he groaned. "Very."

She shifted again, so that she was straddling him properly. Deliberately, she let her weight sink onto him.

"_Oh_," he breathed. "Shepard?"

"It's alright," she murmured, and leaned down. She kissed the sides of his face, and the blue markings above, and the softer skin beneath his jaw. "Garrus, it's alright."

He shuddered. His hands cupped over the backs of her thighs, rocking her against him. She sighed out his name again, and responded, moving against him with the same desperate rhythm.

Awkwardly, he sat up, rolling them both over. Her back hit the couch, and instinctively, she brought her knees up around his waist. He settled between her legs, and he nuzzled his forehead against hers. His tongue dipped into the hollow of her throat. Close to frantic, she surged up against him, locking her hands behind his neck. Her skin seemed to be prickling and hot all over and she could feel how wonderfully hard he was when she wrapped her legs around his and arched up to meet him.

"Garrus," she said, breathlessly. "God."

"Yeah," he said, and his tongue swept against her temple. "Sorry."

Shepard laughed. She let her legs drop away from his. "For that?"

He stayed above her, his weight braced on his elbows. "You feel very good."

"So do you." She was laughing again, inexplicably and ridiculously. "You have no idea how glad I am that that felt so good."

"No?" Lazily, Garrus rolled his hips again, until she sighed. "And why is that?"

"Because I want you," she said, simply and quietly.

"I just, ah. Never considered cross-species intercourse."

Shepard swallowed a laugh. "We're not calling it that."

"What? Cross-species intercourse?"

"Yeah. That. And don't you dare say it again."

He laughed and very gently, he bit at the curve of her shoulder. "Whatever you say."

When he shifted, moving so that he was sprawled beside her, she couldn't quite decide if she was relieved or about ready to kill him. _He'd cleaved against her so well, and her legs had fit around his waist, and his weight on her had been pinioning and heavy and she'd ached. _

"Okay," she said. "Talk to me."

"Talk?"

"That thing with the sound of your voice."

"You're so funny." His fingers caught under her chin and stroked. "About what?"

"Tell me about Palaven."

"It's hot," Garrus said, wryly.

"And there's a lot of turians there," she added, and deliberately matched his tone. "Just like Earth is a concrete hellhole and there's lots of humans."

"Spend much time there?"

"Very little." Shepard flattened one hand against his chest and followed the hard lines of him. _Memories that were snapshots,_ she thought, _the relentlessly dank squares of Earth and the bright tree-framed greenness of other places she could barely remember and that planet she'd found herself on once where every breath tasted like new snow. _Her fingertips mapped out the dips and ridges beneath his clothes, and almost absently, she added, "Four shiny walls and a gear locker. That could've been my Alliance background info."

"My four walls was my damn office on the Citadel. I _hated_ that room."

"Never minded mine so much."

"_You_ never worked on the Citadel."

"Fair point," she said, slightly impishly, and kissed the jut of his chin. "You know the husks we saw today?"

"And _that's_ really keeping the mood going."

"Sorry," she said, mostly sincerely. "I just…how many places do you think that's happened?"

"I don't know. I don't want to know."

"Yeah. It bothers me," she admitted. "They're our targets. We learn more about them every time we come up against the ugly bastards. But part of me would be happy never seeing another one of them again as long as I live."

"Geth," Garrus said, and his fingers feathered over the back of her head. "_Them_ I don't mind shooting."

"Yeah." She let the silence linger a moment longer, stretching between them. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"Don't be," he said, and his voice roughened. "Say anything you want."

"You know now that you've said that, I won't be able to think of anything."

"Favourite colour?"

"Grey. Favourite drink?"

"Whatever's cheapest. You?"

"Not shots," she said, and grinned.

"Bad memories?"

"Missing memories," she told him, and stifled a laugh.

"I'm appalled," Garrus said, drily.

"I was young and wild. It's allowed. Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You don't have anywhere else to be right now, do you?"

"No," he said, and nuzzled against the slope of her neck. "Nothing I can think of."

* * *

><p>Garrus felt the press of the couch against his shoulder and wondered how the hell it - <em>this, whatever this was, this strange bundle of nerves and heat and the exhilarating awareness that he could her feel her heartbeat against his chest - <em>was already feeling _usual_. They'd talked – hell, she was _still_ talking, her eyes all alight and shining and her lips moving rapidly over her even white teeth – and they'd listened and he was still battling the urge to pull her tighter against him.

Slowly, he touched the side of her thigh and felt her shivering response. Her skin yielded beneath his fingers, and when he explored the odd shape of her knee, she laughed.

"What?"

"You look so enthralled."

"I am," he said, and rubbed his forehead against hers. "It's your fault for being a strange shape."

"Nice," Shepard said, and rolled herself on top of him.

"Oh," he managed. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"I never thought," he said, and shrugged. "You know."

"Yeah," she said, and pressed her mouth against the side of his neck. "I know."

The silence settled over them both, easy and patient. Garrus listened to the tempo of her breathing, and when he ran his hands up to the nape of her neck, he found that he could feel her pulse there as well, rapid and shallow. His hands moved again, spanning the contours of her back, all banded muscle and the sharp press of her shoulderblades and the raised pattern of her spine. He found his way back down to her hips and hesitated.

"It's okay," Shepard murmured.

"Yeah," he said. Carefully, he guided her down against him again and abruptly, he almost wished he'd let her stay where she was. "Oh. Yeah. That…"

"Yeah," she said, and the word was half a gasp. "Yeah, don't take this the wrong way. I'm going to sit up."

"Good," he said, and winced. "I mean, not good. You know what I mean."

_Because she was far too close and he could feel the heat between her legs and he wanted nothing more than to flip them both over so he could pin her against the couch beneath him. _

"Yeah. I do," Shepard answered, as she wriggled away from him. She paused, half-crouched, and grinned. "You okay?"

"Very funny."

She waited until he was sitting up properly, and she said, "I was thinking."

"Dangerous occupation."

"Very." She wrapped her arms around her knees, and he found himself staring at how her fingers wreathed together. "I should probably go do my rounds. Reports. Meetings. Seeing if Reapers are about to eat the ship. I was wondering if you wanted to catch up again tomorrow."

"Catch up, huh?"

"And, well. You know."

"Date night?" he asked, deliberately deadpan.

She spluttered into a laugh. "I think I preferred it when you were being all weird and clinical about it."

"I'll be here," he said, and he was rewarded by her slow, pleased smile. He brushed her cheekbones, and the soft, flushed warmth in her skin beneath. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"I want," Garrus said. He steeled himself, aware of her patient, level gaze. Words were slippery creatures, he knew, and it _really_ didn't help that he wasn't entirely sure what he _wanted_ to say. But he could still smell her, the scent of her clinging to his clothes and his hands and the inside of his mouth. "I don't know. Moments that are ours. Just ours."

"Yeah," Shepard answered, and she tilted her head into the questing pressure of his hand. "I want that, too."


	15. Twining

_I've now surfaced from ME3 and caught up on essays, so I'm hoping to get back to uploading once every week and a half or so. An absolutely huge thank-you to everyone who's supporting this story, and just a reminder of the rating for this chapter. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Fifteen – Twining**_

Silently, Shepard counted the thud of the treadmill pedals beneath her feet. The slow burn of exertion crept up the back of her calves, and eventually, she released her slightly damp hold on the handgrip. She eased herself through a cooldown routine and afterwards, she checked the clock and discovered she'd whipped herself through the workout faster than she'd planned.

"Shepard?"

"Yes, EDI?"

"Thane has requested a meeting with you."

"Oh?" She rubbed the towel across the back of her neck. "Urgent?"

"He did not say." EDI's tone lightened, and she added, "He suggested the briefing room."

"Okay. Let him know I'm on my way."

"Of course, Shepard."

She discovered the assassin already there, sitting poised and wordless, his hands clasped on the table.

"Shepard," he said, when the door closed behind her.

"EDI mentioned you wanted to see me."

"Yes." He hesitated, and his gaze lifted, liquid and dark. "I have a request."

"Go on," she prompted, not unkindly. She chose a chair opposite and waited, noticing his wiry stillness.

"I have a son," Krios said, very quietly.

"I didn't know that." She smiled, and amended, "Not that I should've. You just never mentioned anything like that before."

"No, I didn't. Then, it did not seem to matter. Now, it…" He shrugged, an elegant, fluid motion. "My thoughts are unsettled."

"Take your time."

"I fear I have already done that too long." His head rose, and he said, "I think that I need to go to the Citadel."

* * *

><p>"Talk to C-Sec," Garrus said, his head bowed over the gleaming lines of his sniper rifle. His hand moved, as gracefully, hooking up the oil-dampened cloth again. "New arrivals with no obvious affiliations tend to cause a little bit of a stir. And a drell would cause ripples, no matter how innocent he's pretending to be. They're not a usual sight on the Citadel."<p>

Shepard grinned. "Krios thought so as well. I want you hanging in the shadows for this one. Least until we track down the junior assassin."

"I can do that. He's got a plan?"

"Quiet and slow. Apparently the idea is to talk to the kid, not scare him shitless."

"Family," Garrus remarked. "Funny thing."

"Yeah. It is." Slowly, almost painfully, she remembered Krios' face as he'd spoken, each word soft and plangent with regret. _Ten years_, he'd said. Ten years since he'd walked away from Irikah's death and Kolyat's life and now he was _here_, handed the means to a reunion that _she could see_ he wasn't sure if he wanted.

"Hard to go back," she said. Brusquely, distracting herself, she grabbed at her weapon harness and thumbed one of the buckles.

"Yeah." Garrus ran the cloth along the underside of the barrel. "I guess eventually there'll be time."

"Yeah," she said, and understood.

He must've marched out of the Citadel and straight off the grid and into Archangel's shadow without so much as a farewell message, she guessed. She'd done the same, she supposed, with the help of a Collector ship and the rushing fire that had split the _Normandy_ in half.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You finished?"

"Almost," he said, and swept the cloth under the vicious slant of the muzzle.

"Almost, my ass," she said, mildly.

"You're right. I'm doing it _just _to point out that you aren't."

"I just clean my gear faster than you."

"Sure," he said, and she heard the sudden laughter in his voice.

"You know I'm right." She reached out and caught the back of his hand. Beneath her touch he was wiry, and she felt the shift of his tendons as he tensed. "Garrus?"

"Yeah," he said, and he turned his hand so that his palm was pressed against hers. "You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking I killed myself on the treadmill earlier and I still can't sit still."

"I'm sure I could rustle up a battalion of bad guys for you to shoot."

"You're so romantic," she told him.

"I know." His eyes lightened, blue and level. "Should've asked me down for some sparring."

"Yeah. That would've worked well. All that close contact and sweating."

His mandibles parted in a quick grin. "It's kind of the same, I guess. Easing tension."

"I don't know. I don't feel particularly eased right now."

"We'll get to that."

"We'd better," Shepard said, and tightened her fingers around his. He smelled of weapon oil and clean skin and almost without thinking, she smoothed her other hand across his forehead. "Besides, I probably need to expand my internal repertoire."

Garrus' jaw clicked. "You're saying what I think you're saying?"

"Uh. No?"

He laughed. "Filthy human."

"Yeah, yeah. Like you haven't."

"I refuse to answer that."

"So you have?" she said, and smirked.

"Yeah," he said, and grimaced. "I mean, yeah. I did. You know. To see if, you know. If it worked."

"And did it?"

"Yeah," he said, exhaling the word. "Yeah, it did."

"Yeah," Shepard echoed. "Me too."

She remembered it, the flush of warmth and the arch of her back and the wet glide of her own fingers between her thighs. _The aching realization that even when she dared let her thoughts slip to him, all angles and blue eyes and so inhuman and strange – even when she sighed out his name, her body bowed and responded. _A morning spent among the damp tangle of her sheets, and suddenly she realised that her face was flooding with heat.

"Shepard?"

"Yeah," she said, too quickly. "So. You finished?"

"You're so impatient," Garrus said, and tipped his head into the questing pressure of her hand. "Yeah. I am."

* * *

><p>Garrus felt the slide of the couch against his shoulders as he shifted. Absurdly, he realised he was nervous, the apprehension all tangling up inside him. Which was even <em>more<em> ridiculous, because his lap was full of her, warm and close and her hands linked around the back of his head, and he didn't want her to move.

"Shepard." He swallowed. "It's not that I don't want to, I just…"

"Garrus," she said, gently. "I'm going to see you without your shirt on at some point regardless. Be a man and just take it off. Turian. You know what I mean."

"Yeah, yeah." He'd kept himself awake and alive in that damn eyrie down on Omega, and the thought of stripping down to his pants had him squirming like some idiot? _Of course it did_, he thought. _She'd be seeing him, really _seeing_ him, nothing between them but their own breath, and something far too like fear had its hooks deep in his gut. _

Slowly, Garrus caught the hem of his tunic, and heaved it up and over his head, instinctively avoiding the back of his fringe. He didn't want to look at her. He didn't want to see her face as she looked at him and suddenly he wondered if this was too much too fast but he'd already done it, and the air was cool against his chest and the back of his neck. So he stared down at the tops of his knees and flicked his talons against each other, and tried desperately not to wonder what she might be thinking.

"Garrus." She clasped him under the chin and raised his head. "Look at me."

He did, and found her smiling, her pale cheeks slightly flushed.

"Now let me look at you." She ran her thumb along his jaw. "And stop worrying."

He watched the movement of her eyes as she studied him, leaning closer, her smile fading slightly.

"Shepard?"

"You're incredible. And strange. And no, I didn't mean that in a bad way." Frowning, she reached out. "Can I touch you?"

He nodded, and did not trust himself to speak.

Her fingers brushed his collar, then travelled down across the solid plates of his chest. She traced between them, finding softer skin and stroking. Further down, she trailed past the end of his sternum, and smiled when she touched the sensitive patch that gave way to his waist.

"Garrus." She lifted her head and grinned. "I think I rather like the way you look."

"You do?" Sudden, stupid relief washed through him. "You do. Good."

"You feel rough here, and much softer, here." She slipped her hand along his waist, and he shivered in response. "You're going to have to teach me how to touch you properly. And where to touch you."

"There," he managed. "There is very good."

Her hand lingered on him a moment longer. "Me next?"

He nodded wordlessly. She tugged her vest up over her head, ruffling her hair. He watched as she wrestled with the underwear beneath, and when she threw it aside, he was suddenly very, very aware that for the first time he was seeing more skin than fabric.

She was pale and crosshatched with scars and he wondered if it was strange that he noticed the elegant span of her collarbones first.

"Well?"

"I think I rather like the way you look, too."

He touched her, as slowly and as cautiously as she'd touched him. She was warm, and he could feel the thud of her pulse at her throat. Hesitantly, he let his fingertips skim over her collarbones and lower, and he heard her sudden inhalation.

"Okay?"

"Very okay. Here," Shepard said, and she guided his hands to her breasts. "Gently."

"Like this?"

"Yeah," she said, her voice roughening. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You look like you're _really_ concentrating."

Almost despite himself, he laughed. "I am. I've never done this before. I mean, not with a human. And you look, well. Fragile."

Shepard grinned. "Now there's a compliment just designed to get a girl going."

"Very funny."

He brushed his thumbs across her nipples and heard the way her breathing hitched and suddenly he wanted her closer. Close to frantic, he hauled her against him until they were pressed together, his fingers biting into her shoulders. She straddled him, bracing her weight on her knees. Almost instinctively, he ran his hands down her sides, over muscle and sinew until he clasped her hips. She murmured something, maybe his name, and then she moved, rippling and shuddering against him.

"Mmm. Garrus," she said, and squirmed off him. "Don't worry," she added, and grinned. "I'm going nowhere, so take that pout off your face, turian."

"I _can't_ pout."

"No?" Her grin stayed, wicked and teasing. She hooked her thumbs into her shorts and peeled them down over her hips. Whatever she'd been wearing under them followed.

Garrus stared, and managed, "Shepard?"

"It's alright." Slowly, she sank onto his lap again. She wound her arms around the back of his head and murmured, "Garrus? Touch me?"

"Yeah," he muttered, and wondered briefly if he could have sounded any more useless if he'd tried. Carefully, he slid his hands down the outside of her thighs. Soft, he noticed again, mottled with scars on one leg, and he could feel the tantalizing shift of the muscles beneath.

She rolled against him, and her scent filled his mouth, damp and human and slightly musky and _yearning_. He cupped one hand beneath her, and when she sighed appreciatively, he gathered his nerve and let his fingers play between her thighs. She was wet, and her soft, warm folds gave beneath the pads of his fingers.

"_Oh_," Shepard breathed against his neck. "Yes. Like that. _Just_ like that."

She was shivering in his arms, he realised, shivering and shuddering against him. He gathered her closer until her head nestled beneath his, each rasping breath hot and uneven against his chest. He stroked, small slow circling motions until her thighs shook.

"Shepard," he said. "I'm not, I mean, am I going to hurt you?"

"No," she said, and laughed. She planted both hands on his shoulders and rocked herself against his hand. "No."

He heard her sharp inhalation, and when she moved faster, he met every downward grind of her hips. Her rhythm faltered, and he had time to notice how her eyes widened, how her fingers dug hard into his shoulder, and then she twisted against him, his name rolling off her tongue again.

"So," Garrus said. She was a sweating sprawl of pale limbs in his arms, and he found himself listening to the tempo of her breathing. "Good?"

"Bastard." She flicked his leg. "_Really_ good." She tried to straighten up, failed, and clung onto him for another long moment. "Your turn?"

"Oh," he said, and his mind went unhelpfully vague. "Please?"

She laughed again, light and unfettered. She slid off him, guiding his knees apart so she could curl between them. She swept her hands up the inside of his thighs, and then her hands were _on_ him, teasing and stroking through his pants.

She took her time with him – deliberately, he was certain – until he was writhing on the edge of the couch. The small sounds of her unbuckling his belt and undoing the clasps beneath reached his ears. Her hand closed round him and his thoughts scattered. Somehow he managed to lift himself slightly so she could tug his pants down, so she could grasp him properly.

Her fingers were small and wiry and the heat coiling in his belly made him shudder. Too fast, his climax unreeled through him, shocking and _hard_ and almost painful, and he heard himself gasping out Shepard's name.

"Shepard," he said again. "Okay?"

"I'll get a towel and let you know."

He choked on a sudden laugh. "How romantic."

"Yeah, yeah." She stood, slightly wobbly, and braced her hands on his shoulders. "Lie down."

Helplessly, he complied. She spilled across his chest, soft and silken. Part of his mind registered that his pants were somewhere in the region of his knees, and that he probably should feel absurd.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"That was fun."

"Yeah." He buried one hand in her hair until he cupped the back of her head. "Yeah, it was."

* * *

><p>Shepard surfaced from blessedly harmless dreams and discovered herself still half trapped beneath the weight of Garrus' arms. She'd finally coaxed him off the couch, she remembered, off the couch and onto the mattress and he'd even let her convince him to leave his clothes behind.<p>

_Then there'd been his hands on her again, exploring and gentle and then fierce and she'd come hard, again, her body bucking up against his touch. _

She lay beside him, close enough that she was breathing against his mouth. He smelled strange, she thought, clean and slightly metallic and like heat. Gently, she pressed her lips just above his mouth. She licked at the rough, hard skin there, and felt it when he laughed.

"Shepard," he said, and his arms tightened around her. "You're being weird."

"You _taste_ weird."

"No, I don't."

She laughed. "Are your teeth very sharp?"

"No, they're all pointed just for show."

"Funny." She was smiling again, widely and ridiculously. She brushed her thumbs across the rough angles that gave way to the steep rise of his cheekbones. "So. Next time?"

"Next time what?"

"Next time maybe I don't have to stop with my hands?"

"Oh? Got other plans?"

"A few." She flattened her palm against his chest. He was all angles, and she was close enough that she could see the rough ridges and softer patches between his plates. Wiry and muscled and warm and she wasn't sure when she'd last felt this inclined to do nothing.

_Nothing except lie here and look at him, and stay inside the circle of his arms. _

"I'll bring the wine," Garrus said.

"Charmer."

"You know it."

"Yeah," she said, and dragged her fingertips across his chest. She touched his shoulder, and the spread of the scars on his neck. "I never realised."

"What?"

"You're covered in your own personal set of armour. So," she said, and made herself look up and into his face. "So when you introduced yourself to that rocket, it must've been a hell of a hit."

"Yeah," he said. "At least, I guess it was. I don't really remember it. I mean, I do. I remember it happening. I don't remember what it felt like. Make sense?"

"Oh, yeah," she answered. "I remember the first time I got shot. Years ago. Really shot, not winged or clipped. Full on shields out, punched a hole through my shoulder. It's not the same, but I remember it felt like pressure, and heat, and I remember hitting the floor. I remember there was rubble or some shit everywhere, and my knees hurt like hell."

"Funny," Garrus said, softly. "The things we remember."

"Yeah. I remember all the feeling going out of my arm and blood just pouring out of my shoulder, and wondering which bastard hadn't sanded the floor lately."

Garrus hesitated, his fingers combing through her hair. "I remember your voice."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," he said. "Your voice. And then that weird part where I couldn't feel my head anymore. That part was less fun."

She smiled, and it wavered slightly. "Yeah."

"The Citadel," he said, probably deliberately distracting her, and she found that she didn't mind. "You reckon you'll find Krios' son?"

"Kolyat," she said. "How hard could it be to track down a kid who thinks he's as good as dad when it comes to hiding in shadows?"

"Tricky part's going to be catching up with him before he does something stupid."

"Yeah. And even if we do, Krios gets to have fun sitting down and talking to him."

"You wouldn't?" Garrus asked.

"I'm not him. Or his kid. But, God. I don't know what I'd do right now if my own damn mother walked through that door."

"Apologise for being naked in bed with a turian?"

"Mom's progressive," Shepard said, and grinned. "I don't know. Sometimes the distance is better. Or better than having to see them, and then step away again."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and he nuzzled his mouth against the side of her neck. "I know what you mean."

"And, you know. It's a fair way to the Citadel."

"Yeah. Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

She turned her head so she could feel the rhythm of his breathing, soft and warm against her cheek. "Sure."

"Sure you don't want something, you know," he muttered. His blue eyes darted, flickering and uncertain. "Closer to home."

"No," she told him firmly. "I want you. I trust you."

"Okay," he said, slowly. "I am incredibly easy on the eyes, after all."

"Keep telling yourself that."

"Yeah?" His teeth flashed in a quick grin. "Then why can't you keep your hands off me?"

"Because you're you," she said, honest and searing and startling herself slightly. "Spiky bits included."

"Oh," Garrus said, unevenly. "Yeah. I mean…yeah. That's quite possibly the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"You know," she murmured, and kissed the side of his face, and the sharp angle of his jaw. "I'm sure I can improve on it. With incentive."

"Incentive, huh?" His tone lightened, and when he nipped at her shoulder, she laughed and grabbed at the back of his head. "What kind?"

"You're smart. You'll figure it out."

"I might." He shifted, rolling her onto her side and sliding one hand up the inside of her thigh. His palm was slightly rough, and the searching pressure of his fingers made her ache. "Shepard?"

She swallowed and caught at the back of his wrist. She guided him further and managed, "Yeah?"

"This was a good idea."

"Yeah. Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You want to stop talking now?"


	16. Peace

_As always, the biggest thank-you to everyone who's following and supporting this story. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Sixteen – Peace**_

The drell kid's hands were clamped around the pistol, far too tight, and Shepard could see the same rigid tension in his shoulders. She'd shouted his name once already, and startled him into shaking.

And now she had that damn slimy turian politician on his knees in front of the kid, and Krios coiled beside her, and Garrus on her other side, and she was suddenly almost certain that it was all going to go belly-up.

"_Kolyat_," she snapped, again. "Let him go and we can talk this out."

The kid's head came up, and she saw his mouth tremble. Beneath his clothes he was wiry, the angles of his face sharper than his father's. _Wiry and floundering and he _had_ to have noticed his father by now_, Shepard thought. Beside her, Krios shifted, that precise, careful movement that she knew meant he was gathering himself to move. _He moves_, she thought_, he moves and the kid freaks and maybe the politician bolts and it all fucks up. _

Briskly, Shepard gauged the distance to the kneeling turian again. As quickly, she raised her pistol and fired. The bullet thumped into the wall behind the kid's shoulder, and when he flinched, she was already moving. Crossing the floor and crashing into him, sending his gun arm flailing uselessly. A punch to his jaw staggered him, and she grabbed his wrist.

"Let it go," she said, very quietly. "Let the gun go."

The kid's fingers slackened, and he nodded.

"Alright," she said, and pulled the weapon from his hand. "Listen to me. Your father's here and he needs to talk to you."

The kid's head lifted. "Of course," he said, and his voice was the same deep rumble as his father's. "He would be here now."

There was something in his face, in his black glaring eyes, something vicious and regretful. Shepard stepped away from him, and when Krios slid in front of her, his hands reaching out for his son, she found that she did not want to watch.

Not this kind of reunion, all full of anger and stifled sorrow, so she spun away and nudged the turian politician and told him to keep running if he valued a single fucking bone in his body.

"Thane," she said, gently, eventually. "We need to get out of here." Into the odd, stretching silence, she added, "If nothing else, those C-Sec snipers outside need to know they can relax."

* * *

><p>Shepard leaned against the back of the chair and asked, "No issues, Bailey?"<p>

"Nothing explosive," he answered. He scrubbed one hand across the back of his head, and added, "They have as many hours in that room to talk themselves to death as they want. After that, I don't know. The kid did have a gun to the back of Talid's head."

"Talid's still breathing."

"Yeah, I know." Bailey grimaced. "I'll think about it."

"Okay." She straightened up and threw a lopsided smile at Garrus. "You want to waste some time?"

An hour later, she sat with her hands wrapped around a cup of something warm and slightly spicy that Garrus swore blind was a raving hit with Citadel-dwelling humans. She was vaguely aware of the low buzz of conversation around them, and Garrus' listening presence on the other side of the table.

"You know," she said. "I really want to say that it's great being off the ship, just the two of us."

"But it's weird because we're only here because of Krios and his son."

"Yeah." She lifted the cup again, and the liquid swirled across her tongue, rich and warming. "You were quiet."

"Yeah. I don't, well. It's strange, standing around in C-Sec now. It's the same and it's not the same."

She waited, easily and without censure, while he stared down at his linked hands.

"I'm not," Garrus said, and shrugged. "It's not the same. Not really. And it's not like I really know any of them down here."

"Not your turf?" she said, and smiled.

"On occasion. I preferred hanging around the really filthy wards."

"Sure you did."

"There may have been orders involved. Occasionally."

"Only occasionally? Lucky turian."

"Yeah, yeah."

Shepard grinned, and asked, "So. What next?"

"Next?" Garrus leaned forward, his hands cupping over hers. "Dinner, alcohol, and whichever hotel we stagger into first."

"I'm overcome. Will there be breakfast and a movie in the morning as well?"

"If you can walk."

Shepard laughed. "That sure of yourself, huh?"

"You know it."

"Suddenly I'm wishing I could go tell the Collectors to leave us alone for a week or so."

"I know," he said, and his fingers tightened around hers. "We can still do most of it on the _Normandy_."

"Half of it."

"I was thinking the dinner and alcohol part."

"Priorities," she said, still smiling. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You want to let go so I can finish my drink?"

He laughed and leaned back, his fingertips brushing along hers. "Sure."

She made it through to the heady, warm dregs, and almost despite herself, she thought again of the dark, twisting corridors in the Citadel, and the way they'd snaked and looped around until _she_ _was sure_ she'd had to have just missed Kolyat in them.

_"Where will you be?"_

_ "In the darkest corner with the best view."_

_ Which was all well and good, she supposed, but that left her slithering around in the dark while Garrus shadowed the politician on the ground and Krios did whatever it was he was doing. _

"Shepard?"

"I'm okay," she said, and it was almost a sigh. "Just thinking. I think I prefer covert shit when it involves jungles and hordes of bad guys."

"Shepard," Garrus said, and grinned. "That's not covert. That's just you running in and shooting everything in sight."

"A strategy that serves me well." She mustered up a smile for him and added, "I don't know. Spying on sleazy bartenders is not what usually emerges when I think of some shady sneaking around assignment."

"I don't know. I had some real slow days at C-Sec."

She grinned, and kicked lazily at the side of his foot beneath the table. "You know, you're a pretty good date."

"That's a compliment?"

"The very best."

Garrus nudged his foot back against hers. "I'll take your word for it. You want to head back soon?"

* * *

><p>Shift change brought a round of reports, and a brief meeting with Lawson, and after the woman had left, Shepard stared at the blank blue ripples of the aquarium and absently wondered if she could justify jumping ship. She was still sitting uselessly, a report open across her lap, when EDI flickered into life.<p>

"Shepard?"

"What's up, EDI?"

"Thane would like to speak to you, if you have the time."

"Course I do. Same place?"

"Yes, Shepard."

"Thanks, EDI."

She swung her feet back onto the floor and noted the twinge that ran up the back of her calves. In the briefing room, she discovered the assassin as still and poised as he'd been on the Citadel.

"Hey," she said, her tone neutral. "Feeling okay?"

"Yes," he answered, and the corners of his mouth moved. "Oddly, perhaps."

"No. It's not odd. Your son's alive."

"Yes," the assassin said again, and his shoulders shifted beneath his coat. "We talked. Our problems are not something that can be fixed easily with words, but…well. There will be time for messages. And afterwards, there may be time to see each other again."

"Good."

"I won't keep you, Commander. I merely wanted to thank you."

"Well," she said, lightly. "I was kind of hoping you'd forgive me for punching your son in the jaw if it meant he didn't have to kill Talid."

Krios' lips parted into a slow smile. "I think I can find it within me to be magnanimous, Commander."

* * *

><p>The day wound to a slow close. Shepard busied herself with rearranging the pieces of her armour on the gear shelves and when she heard the soft buzz of the keypad, and footsteps, she called, "You skulking out there, Garrus?"<p>

The door slid open, and he answered, "How'd you guess this time?"

"Something to do with spending the past hour hoping you'd be finishing up in the main battery." She stared at the gleaming pieces of her armour for another long moment. "You know what pisses me off?"

"Krogan who regen too quickly?"

"Well, yeah." Half-smiling, she added, "My armour. It's not _my_ armour. It's just something Cerberus faked up for me."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and she heard the measured noise of his booted feet against the floor behind her. "I could say something really inappropriate about your last set of armour probably not being in the best condition right now, if you want."

Shepard snorted. "Thanks." She turned, and smiled when she noticed his clean fatigues, and the bottle clasped in his right hand. "Got plans for that, have you?"

"I have a few ideas."

"Only a few?"

"Critic."

She found clean glasses, and after she curled herself beside him on the couch, one leg across both of his, Garrus asked, "It really bothers you?"

"What?"

"The armour."

She shrugged. "Only when I let myself think about it."

"Yeah," he said. "I think I know what you mean."

"You know something?"

"Lots of things. Which one were you thinking of?"

"Very funny." She followed the elegant motion of his hand as he reached for the wine bottle. "I'm thinking it's about time we start really thinking about this IFF of ours. Or this IFF that should be ours. Whichever."

Garrus unstoppered the bottle. "The Illusive Man give you any updates on the science team that went in?"

"Lawson forwarded a report. They'd managed to work their way into the ship and were taking basic readings."

"Basic readings. What's a basic reading to take _inside_ a Reaper?"

Shepard grinned. "Whether or not its about to wake up and eat you?"

"Nice." He tipped the bottle up, and she watched as he poured the wine, pale and clear. "You think it'll be as easy as turning up and taking over where they finished?"

"No. I'd like it to be, but I look at our track record and then I realise there's not a fucking chance in hell that it will be."

"You're such an optimist sometimes, Shepard."

"You're thinking exactly the same thing."

"Yeah, true," he said. He lifted one of the glasses and pressed the stem of it into her hand. "It colours my opinion when the last Reaper we saw was trying to chew its way through the Citadel."

She lifted the glass and let the wine flood across her tongue, crisp and cold. "Nice."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, and not just because I'd never turn down a free drink."

"I'm flattered."

She sipped at the wine again, and fought away the sudden, awful urge to laugh. "You know, these slow-going evenings we've been having. I just got to hope like hell no one checks my extranet searches."

"Nice, Shepard."

"Like I know what to do with a turian."

"I'm fairly forgiving."

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't laugh, but…I'm nervous."

"Yeah." His teeth clicked. "So am I. We can, you know. Stop. If you want. Or wait."

"Really?" she asked, very quietly. "You'd be fine with turning around and walking out right now?"

"Well, no. It just seemed like the right thing to say."

As softly, she laughed. She left the glass on the table, and when she turned back to him, he met her halfway, his arms wrapping around her waist.

"I just," Garrus said, and he pulled her closer, so that the side of his face slid against hers. "I want something to go right. I want this to go right."

"I know," she said, gently. "So. Bed?"

He laughed then, sudden and warm against the side of her neck. "You're full of good ideas today."

She disentangled herself from his arms and paused long enough to study his face, angular and strange and sharp. She found his hands and drew him up to his feet and across the floor. She pushed him onto the end of the bed and, as slowly as she had the first time, she ran her hands over him. Wordlessly, he guided her fingers to the buckles at his waist and after she wrestled with them, she had him finally and distractingly naked.

She let him do the same for her, working her clothes off until he could smooth his hands over the skin beneath. He was taking his time – teasingly, softly, he was taking his time – and when his hand _eventually_ slipped up the inside of her thigh, she groaned.

"Good?"

"You know it's good," she murmured. She moved, swinging one leg over his so that she was quite firmly on his lap. "Garrus?"

His forehead brushed hers. "Yeah?"

"I want you."

He growled, low in his throat, and his hands slid up to clasp her hips. "You're sure?"

"No, I sit naked on turians all the time."

He laughed, and let himself fall backwards onto the bed. She spilled across him, and the feel of him under her made her shiver. She kissed his throat and his jaw and the top of his shoulder. Beneath her, he was rough, his skin dragging against hers. His hands cupped against the back of her legs, and when she tried to settle herself onto him properly, she seemed to run out of space and her knees scraped at the sides of his hips.

"Yeah," Shepard managed, breathlessly. "Different angle?"

"Your fault," he said mildly. He straightened up, cradling her against him.

"We can work the tricky stuff out next time."

"Other way round?"

"Yeah," she said again, and tugged him down on top of her. She rested her hands against his chest, and when she brought her legs up around his waist, his head dropped against the side of her neck.

Awkwardly, he reached between them, and she heard his shuddering gasp. She lifted her hips, and when he guided himself into her, she caught at his shoulders.

_He was hard and thick and wonderful and she'd made them go too fast and now it stung and suddenly she wasn't quite sure what to say. _

"Garrus," she said, and kissed the side of his neck. "Slow down?"

"Sorry."

"No," she said, and arched up against him. "Just slowly. It, well. It hurts."

"Oh, hell." He gripped her waist, slightly too tight, and looked away from her. "I didn't mean…"

"_Stop_. Garrus. Stop panicking." She reached up, caught his jaw. "It's hurt with human guys before."

"Yeah. Really?"

"_Yes_, really. And look at it this way. It's not like I've been around the block all that much since Cerberus put me back together. Just slowly, alright?"

"Yeah. Slowly," he said, and when his hips rocked again, he kept his pace tentative. "Is that okay?"

"Garrus," she said, and laughed. "I'm not made of glass."

"Well, yeah, but," he said, and then his laughter joined hers. "Go slow, don't go slow, you're confusing me here, Shepard."

"I know. Sit up?"

He complied, rolling himself off her and mostly upright so that his bare feet were on the floor again. She looked at him, looked at his blue eyes and the way she thought she could see him smiling.

"Garrus," she said again, and his name caught in her throat.

"Yeah?"

"Nothing." She grinned, and added, "Stay there and spread your legs."

"Smooth, Shepard."

"You know me." She planted her hands on his knees and guided his thighs wider apart. Carefully, she slipped between them and wound her legs around the back of his narrow waist. This close, Shepard could feel the warm, soft rhythm of his breathing. His hands were cupped under her, bracing her weight, his fingers digging into her skin.

"Oh," he said. "_Oh_."

Very gently, she sank onto him again. She bit at the inside of her cheek and waited for the awkward, stretching burn to fade. She shifted, and tried again to adjust.

"Any better?"

"Better," she said, and pressed her lips against the nearest patch of rough skin. She rose and fell against him, leaning into the wonderful, cradling pressure of his hands. "Oh, God. Garrus."

He murmured something against her, and surged up underneath her, matching her rolling, slow pace. She locked her arms around the back of his head and held on, held on even when the muscles in her thighs shook, even when he grazed his teeth along the slope of her neck. He was warm and solid and buried in her and somehow he had one hand shifting from under her and his thumb delving into the wet folds between her thighs and stroking.

"_Oh_," she managed, muffled against his shoulder. "Yes, I mean..."

"Shepard," he told her, lightly, "Be quiet."

She gulped and nodded. Part of her remembered to keep moving, to keep driving herself against him, and when the release swept through her, violent and shivering, she cried out.

He was laughing again, gently and not mocking, and she knew that she should be saying something. _Saying something, _anything_, to quell the strange, wrenching ache in her._ She opened her mouth, but Garrus moved, and when he asked her if it was alright, she nodded mutely again. Her back hit the rumpled sheets, and she lifted her legs around his waist. His next, deep thrust had her writhing, and she clawed at his shoulders. He was saying her name, she was sure, and the rough burr in his voice almost drowned the syllables. His hips snapped hard against hers, and when he came, she felt it, felt the way that his whole body seemed to shudder into it.

"Garrus," she said, almost soundlessly, enjoying the way her lips shaped his name.

"Can you breathe alright?"

"Well, I do have a turian all over me right now."

"Yeah, yeah."

Garrus rolled onto his side, taking her with him. One of his hands found her hair. "Shepard?" he asked, eventually.

"Yeah?"

"Was that…?"

She crawled up him until she was braced on her elbows above him. "Garrus," she said, and whatever irreverent words she had planned died. "You're wonderful."

"Well, yeah, _I_ know that." His blue eyes glittered wickedly. "You're fairly wonderful yourself."

"Only fairly?"

"Did I hurt you?"

"Garrus." She flicked at the flat bridge of his nose with one finger. "Not frail. Get it?"

"Yeah, I know." He turned his face into her questing hands. "Yeah."

"I know," she told him, gentler. "And no, you didn't fuck me raw. Not yet, anyway."

His whole frame shook with his laughter. "You're a charmer."

"You know it."

"Was that an invitation?"

"Was what?"

"To fuck you raw."

She laughed and sprawled onto the sheets beside him. "A challenge. You staying?"

"Tonight?"

"Yeah."

"I…would that be okay?"

"Yeah," she said, and burrowed under his arm and against his shoulder. "I think it might be."

* * *

><p>Garrus opened his eyes and wondered if he'd really slept. <em>No<em>, he thought. His thoughts had drifted into each other and he'd half-dreamed, but he'd been too aware of her weight in his arms.

_She was still there_, he realised, still curled up against him, her skin dewed with sweat and the scent of them both.

Shepard stirred against him, and when her eyes finally fixed on him, dark and blurred with sleep, she smiled. "Still here?"

"You're lying on my arm."

"Funny."

"Shepard?"

"Yeah," she said, almost a sigh, and nestled herself closer to him. "Me too."

"You," he said, and cupped a hand over the back of her head. "Have no idea what I was going to say."

"Something about how great that was?"

"Something like that." He combed his fingers through the disheveled strands of her hair. "You feel okay?"

"Feel wonderful," she said, her lips moving against his chest.

He hadn't meant it like that, not really – _he'd meant about how it'd hurt, how he'd hurt her, how he'd felt her tighten around him, and not from pleasure – _and part of him suspected that she knew.

"Good," he said, breathing the word against the top of her head.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"We never finished the wine."

"We can always catch up with it now."

She wriggled away from him, and he watched as she stepped into the pooling, soft light near the table. She hooked up the bottle and one of the glasses and when she turned, she grinned.

"Pick your jaw up, Vakarian."

"You're the one standing there," he protested.

"Yeah, yeah."

She sat beside him again, folding her legs beneath her. She poured the wine until the glass brimmed, sipped at it, and passed it across.

"Let's say," Shepard said. "Let's say that we get our hands on the IFF. We get ourselves ready and we go on through the Omega-4 relay. We get through still breathing, and then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I hate missions that are blind to begin with."

"Yeah," he said, and swallowed at the wine again. "No training manual for this one."

"I'm thinking I might get Lawson to hunt down as much data as she can. See if we can figure out numbers. Anything."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and before he could help himself, he laughed. "Sorry."

Her lips stretched into a teasing grin, and she retorted, "What's funny?"

"You. Stark naked and still talking tactics."

She swiped the glass from his hand. "That a complaint?"

"It's an observation," he responded, and watched as she drained the wine to the last inch.

"Consider yourself lucky. Usually when I wake up in the middle of the night with thoughts like that, I have no one else to burden them with."

"Burden away," he said, and something in her face softened.

She pressed the glass into his fingers again, and when he finished it, she had it out of his hand and back onto the floor and her whole body wrapped around him between heartbeats. Her hands ran across his shoulders, up the back of his neck, beneath his fringe, and he shivered.

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

Her hands slipped between them, circling him again, and he managed, "Nothing."

She was smiling again, and when he let his fingers play between her thighs, he found her slick and hot and still smelling of him. She ground herself against his hand, and deliberately, he pinned her with his other arm.

"Garrus," she said, warningly, and caught at his wrist.

"Let me," he asked, and something in him twisted when she grinned, and let go of his wrist, and leaned into his touch.

He didn't tease her – he was too achingly hard for that – but he held her against him and stroked her until she shook in his arms, her back arching. Desperately, Garrus hauled her closer. There was an awkward, stumbling moment while she straddled him, and then he heard her shuddering gasp when he thrust up into her.

He didn't last long, not with the way she was breathing against the side of his neck, and not with the way her hands were knotted beneath his fringe. His climax hit him hard enough to make him cry out, and he buried his face against her shoulder.

"Shepard," he said, into the soft silence.

"Still here," she answered, and he heard the amused lilt in her voice.

Carefully, he moved, drawing her down beside him on the bunched-up sheets. She rolled closer, hooking one of her legs over his hip, and guiding his arm around her waist. He was tired, he realised, tired in some wonderful, sated way that had him aware of little but her warmth against him.

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You know what we should do tomorrow?"

"That, again, at least twice. Also change the sheets."

She laughed, softly, and he felt the dampness of her mouth against the side of his jaw. "That too."

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

He leaned into the side of her neck. He could feel her heartbeat, measured and heavy as his. "Feels good."


	17. Prey

_A really big thank-you to everyone who is reviewing and has this story on favourites and alerts - thank you all so much. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Seventeen: Prey**_

Shepard woke to tangled sheets and Garrus' sprawled weight against her shoulder. Blindly, she reached out until her hand bumped against his chest, and she heard his answering sigh.

"Hey," Shepard said. "Garrus?"

"Mmm?"

"You're heavy."

"No, I'm not," he mumbled, and his eyes finally opened, blue and slightly hazy. "You sleep okay?"

"Yeah. I did." She curled onto her side so that she could look at him, the sheets looped over his waist and his shoulders all strange and rigid and dark against the curve of the pillows. "You?"

"Yeah."

She rolled herself half on top of him, and heard his murmured response as he wound his arms around her.

"Yeah," he said again, his mouth moving against the side of her head. "This is, well."

"Weird?"

"Yeah. And no. It's weird because I woke up with you at least twice already. In bed, I mean."

"But not after two rounds between the sheets."

"Yeah. Am I making sense?"

"You are," she told him gently. "And no, I'm not about to run screaming out the door."

"Well, no. They're your quarters."

She spluttered into a laugh, half-muffled against his neck. "Good point."

His hands slid up the bare sweep of her back, kneading. "I figure now's about the best time to ask what you usually do with your mornings."

"Depends if I have a naked turian in my bed at the time," Shepard said, and kissed the underside of his jaw. She worked her way down the side of his neck and was busy exploring the rough indentations along his chest when the comm station buzzed. "Don't go anywhere," she said, and threw him a smile. She slipped free of his arms and padded across to the desk. She hit the button and asked, "Yeah?"

"Shepard," Lawson said, her voice clipped.

"What do you need, Lawson?"

"Yeoman Chambers has notified me of a problem with your krogan."

"My krogan. You mean Grunt."

"Yes," Lawson said, as unflappably neutral. "Apparently he's taken it into his head that his quarters are interchangeable with a shooting range, or somesuch."

"Okay," Shepard said. "Give me a minute. I'll go talk to him."

"Thank you, Commander."

She leaned back from the desk, and before she was standing properly, Garrus said, "Duty beckons, huh?"

"It has a bad habit of doing that." Almost awkwardly, she shrugged. "Sorry."

"Shepard. It's your ship."

"Yeah," she said, and part of her ached. _He understood, and she should've known he would, because he was too much like her not to. _ "Okay. I'll go talk to Grunt. The shower's yours."

"If that's the way you're going to be treating me, I'll be here tomorrow morning as well."

"I wouldn't argue," she said, and spared him another grin. She made her way across to one of the lockers and reached inside. "Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"You're good to wake up to."

* * *

><p>Hours later, Shepard glared at bleak grey rocks and let her shoulders slacken slightly. The wind still howled between the high metal pillars, and she guessed the strange stillness was another trick.<p>

_Another trick of the ritual, another deliberate pause in this strange rocky basin that was an arena and a theatre and the place where krogan killed to prove they could. _And they'd come here, and she'd tried to see the weight of history in the wind-lashed bedrock. _New blood_, she thought. She could see _that_, varren and klixen all heaped up against the weather-smoothed steps.

"Grunt," she called out, her gaze jumping to where he waited, hunched over and poised – _listening_, she thought, he was _listening_ to the scream of the wind and the silence of the rock beneath. "Grunt?"

"Still breathing, Shepard," he responded, barely moving.

"Yeah. Massani?"

"Burning through ammo," Massani snapped back to her. "They keep coming in waves like this, we'll run clean too soon."

"Yeah, I hear you," Shepard said.

"This the part where you say to conserve and keep it controlled?"

"You know it."

"Yeah," Massani mumbled, and she was almost sure she heard him smirking.

She glanced back to Grunt again, and watched as he straightened up, his eyes rolling until he was staring at the rippling horizon.

"So," Garrus said. "We couldn't've done this the _last_ time we dropped in on Wrex?"

"Grunt wasn't tearing his quarters to shreds back then."

"Inconsiderate."

"So much for galactic harmony," she said, and grinned.

"I can _hear_ you," Grunt remarked.

"Yeah, but I hear little else," Shepard said. "Any reason we're still here?"

"This cannot be all," Grunt said. "Not yet."

_No_, she thought. The shaman had promised a testing, one that had made her send the shuttle back up to the _Normandy_ and cart Massani and Taylor down as well, since she suspected anything to do with krogan might need a certain kind of sledgehammer persistence.

"Grunt?"

"Yes," he said, thickly. "I feel it."

"Great. And _it_ is what?"

"Tuchanka," he answered. "Breathing."

"That's helpful." She eased her hand back to her trigger and waited through another heartbeat. _Beneath the stone and rumbling and moving and _no it wasn't in her fucking head at all _and she could feel it shuddering beneath her feet. _

"Back," she said. "All of us. Now. _Back_. Carefully."

"Shepard?" Garrus asked, his shoulder brushing hers as he shifted.

"Yeah?"

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Holy hell, I hope not," she responded.

She waited, her head tilted into the wind. She was aware of the others, moving behind her, their feet careful against the stone. Grunt, still ahead of her and he was moving suddenly, his shotgun lifting and his head turning and she followed his gaze.

Followed his gaze to where the stone was _fucking rippling_ and buckling and when the thresher maw surged up and out and uncoiled above them, she _almost_ wasn't surprised.

"Well," Shepard said. "That's just fucking great."

_Also fucking huge_, she thought, and backstepped, her eyes on the monster's swaying head and opening jaws.

Grunt fired, three times, and the shells winged hard off the maw's plated neck. It twisted, its whole body looping up and out and seeming to fill the sky.

"Okay," Shepard said, sharper. "Taylor, Massani. Garrus. Back up as far as you can. Give yourselves room."

"On our way," Garrus replied.

The maw dived, arrowing back down towards the ground. Grunt braced himself and fired again, never moving, _never once giving the monster an inch_, and Shepard lifted her rifle and fired in tandem. The maw's head snapped back up, jaws dropping wide, and the vicious, bright splash of acid she'd been expecting flooded the stone. Grunt threw himself aside, rolling away and coming up clear.

The maw twisted itself back beneath the broken stone, and the sudden silence hit Shepard like a punch to the throat.

_Instants,_ she thought. She had instants before it exploded back out into the open and the last time she'd gone up against a bastard of a monster like this, she'd had the Mako and the Mako's guns and the Mako's speed.

"Shepard," Garrus said, his voice crackling through her comm unit. "Plan?"

"Yeah. Where are you?" she asked, and turned so that she could search through the rising dust.

"Stone tower, to your left."

"I see you." She gauged the distance, and before she could speak again, the ground rumbled.

"Shepard," Grunt snarled, and she nodded.

She moved, whirling back around. "Where is it?"

"Right," Grunt said. "I think."

"You _think_. Thanks." She threw him a harried grin. She spun again, her rifle tight to her shoulder. _She needed to keep moving, almost running, never staying still, and _always_ listening to the sound of the maw as it surged through the earth beneath her feet. _

Far too close, the stones shivered and heaved.

"Grunt?"

"I see it, Shepard."

The thresher maw seethed up from the ground again, its head dipping and turning. It swayed, horribly huge against the brown sweep of the sky behind. She heard the hiss of the acid, and the splash as it coated the ground, and then she was running, giving herself distance.

Somewhere ahead, she heard Grunt as he fired again, and then the crackling, tearing sound as the maw dived deep.

_Under the stone and under her feet and she needed to do more than just hurtle away from it the next time it surfaced. _

"Garrus, you hear me?"

"Yeah."

"The three of you. Use your grenades and send it to me."

"Okay," he answered. "You sure about your timing?"

"No," she said, and vaulted over a leaning stone slab. She skidded to a halt beside Grunt and scanned the empty air behind. "You see it move before we do, you throw everything you've got at it."

"Okay. Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Aim properly."

"Screw you, Vakarian," she responded, deliberately mirroring his tone.

She had time to hear him laugh before she was moving again, launching past the stone slab and glaring at the way the dust seemed to roil.

"Movement," Taylor said, his voice even. "Coming up behind you, Shepard."

"Drive it on."

"Got it."

She heard the whipcrack noise of the first grenade going off, and another, and then the shuddering roar of the monster beneath the stone.

"Grunt," she snapped. "We get one chance to make this work. Okay?"

"Yeah," he answered, and she could've sworn he was smiling.

The thresher maw uncoiled up through the broken stone, its jaws already opening. Acid scoured against a half-toppled stone slab, acrid and burning. The maw rippled, wrenching up and through the ground. Another grenade arced in, and it hit the maw's spine and bounced. The explosion sent the maw diving sideways, its coils shearing through loose rock.

"Grunt," Shepard said, and lifted her rifle. Half-crouched, she fired into the monster's gaping mouth. Beneath her, the ground shifted and rolled and desperately she held the rifle steady.

Grunt hurtled past her, and his first shot ricocheted off the maw's straining neck. His next clipped its jaw, and the third sank into one of its eyes. Its head snapped back, and its whole body lashed. The huge coils came twisting down and heaving and swept Grunt off his feet. Shepard cannoned into him, shoving him further. She heard the awful, slithering noise of the maw as it rasped across dry rock. Her comm unit crackled, and Garrus' voice filled her head, shouting for Massani and Taylor to keep firing, keep hazing the damn monster forward.

"Shepard," Grunt snapped out, and rolled back up to his knees.

"Yeah," she managed, between racing breaths.

She wrenched herself upright, and when she looked up, the sky was full of the maw and its opening mouth. Beneath her boots, the ground trembled. She fired, her finger closing and relaxing on the trigger in even, relentless bursts. The maw plunged, and beside her, Grunt fired, every shot burying deep in the underside of the monster's jaw. She could _smell_ it, she realised, the air around it all thick with the stink of the acid and the wet ruin of its eyes.

It was too big and bearing down on them too fucking fast and she kept firing, her gaze on the maw as it crumpled and fell.

She threw herself away from it as its heavy, shining coils loosened and stilled. As briskly, she straightened up and emptied another round into its gaping mouth. "Grunt?"

"Yeah," he answered, his shotgun still leveled at the monster's skull. "Yeah. Think it's dead."

"Yeah." For a long, wary moment, she stared at it. "Yeah," she said again, and choked on a sudden surge of laughter. "Yeah, it's done."

"Shepard?"

"Yeah, Garrus. We're still here. Want to come down and see what we just killed?"

"We helped," he answered, drily.

"Yeah, yeah. Get yourselves over here."

She waited, too aware of the clinging dampness of the sweat beneath her armour, and the way her heartbeat was still galloping.

"That," Garrus said, as he threaded his way around the monster's sprawled bulk. "Is one hell of a big worm."

"Looked even bigger from where I was standing." Shepard grinned, and added, "On foot, Vakarian. _On foot_."

"I'm very impressed," he said, his blue eyes sparkling. "I promise."

"Got to say, though, if Wrex wants to _see_ this thing, he can trek all the way out here himself. I'm not taking him a trophy."

"Commander?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah?"

"Strangers, inbound where we came in."

"Urdnot scouts?"

"Maybe." Taylor tapped his omni-tool and added, "It's Uvenk."

"Right." She hefted her rifle. "If, after all this, that slimy bastard wants a fight, I'm rather inclined to give him one."

* * *

><p>The cabin door slid shut behind her, and for a long, wallowing moment, Shepard listened to the soft silence. She was tired, she realised, too damn tired, even if she had spent the afternoon chasing varren and klixen and obdurate krogan and a fucking thresher maw. She could feel the strain, lodged deep between her shoulders. She wrestled with the buckles on her boots, and by the time she had them both kicked off, she heard Garrus' footsteps at the door.<p>

"It's open," Shepard called over her shoulder.

"Hey," Garrus said, as he stepped over the threshold. "Battlemaster. How do you feel?"

"Bruised."

"Yeah. Long day."

"Yeah." She regarded him a moment longer and smiled. "So. About being here tomorrow morning as well. Still a good idea?"

"Yeah, I thought so," he said lightly.

He reached for her, and when she turned into his arms, he loosened the clasps at her shoulders. He eased her chestplate aside, and when she murmured appreciatively, he laughed.

"Shepard, you are easily pleased."

"Hey, I sweated my own bodyweight into that today."

"Yeah." He laid the chestplate on its shelf. "Did well."

"Thresher maw. On foot. Garrus, I'll be bragging about that when I'm sixty."

"That's allowed," he told her wryly. He unfastened her belt next, and when its weight dropped away from her, she sighed. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"You're filthy."

"That an invitation?"

"It could be," Garrus said, and when he caught her hand again, she let him tug her across the floor and into the shower.

His hands on her were warm and exploring and beneath the falling water, the ache in her muscles dissipated. He took far too much time over her hair, running his fingers through the dark, glossy mop of it again and again, rubbing shampoo into the damp strands. Laughing and still dripping, half-clad in a towel, Shepard dragged him back out of the steam and onto the bed. Her hands were all over him, sliding and damp and seeking. She tugged him down on top of her, and the sudden, wonderful awareness of his weight against her made her shiver.

He teased her – _deliberately and utterly fucking mercilessly, _she was sure – until she twisted away from him, moving so that her back slid against his chest.

"Shepard," he said, his voice roughening and blurring the syllables.

"Yeah," she said, and blindly, she reached for him. "Like this?"

Garrus growled something in response, and then he was hilt-deep in her, his fingers digging into her hips. She matched his pace and drove herself back against him until she felt him shudder, arching into her as he came.

"Shepard," he said, his mouth moving against her shoulder. "You okay?"

"Very okay," she answered, and turned so that she could kiss the side of his face. She leaned back into the cradling pressure of his arms and when he smoothed one hand over her belly and further down, she closed her eyes. Not hurrying, his chin over her shoulder and his other arm still around her, he coaxed her into a warm, jolting kind of climax that made her curve against him.

Afterwards, she sprawled across him, idly aware of the brush of his fingertips across her hip. Almost despite herself, she yawned, and half-muffled it against his shoulder.

"Yeah," Garrus said. "Me too."

"Says he who was hiding in the handy stone tower."

"Obeying orders."

"Yeah, yeah." She grinned and swiped a hand through her messy hair. "Fun?"

"Shepard. It was a thresher maw."

"Yeah."

"So, yeah. Fun," he said, and wrapped his arms around her. "Which makes us both crazy."

"Worked so far."

"Your confidence," he said, drily. "It's astounding."

"It better be." She turned her head slightly and kissed the nearest patch of his bare skin. Rough beneath her lips, and she felt him sigh as she turned again so that she could explore the rise of the silvery plates that ran along his chest.

"Shepard," he murmured, his voice deepening.

"Mmm," she said, and clambered on top of him again. "Yes?"

"Tease."

"Your fault. You're lying here naked underneath me."

Garrus laughed. He moved, quickly and smoothly, tipping her off him and pinioning her. "My fault?"

"Completely," she told him. She tried to stay serious, even when he nuzzled his mouth against the side of her neck, and up to the absurdly sensitive spot just beneath her ear. "That's cheating," she managed.

"Really?"

"Yes," she said, and gasped when he swept her arms above her head. She was laughing, breathlessly and unguardedly, and so was he, and she could feel it, shaking through them both. "You know what I missed today?"

His tongue brushed the side of her neck, and then the corner of her mouth. "What?"

"The Mako. Well, its guns. You remember that time we crashed into a thresher maw?"

"Yeah. I think I dislodged something in my spine."

"_You_ were driving."

Garrus laughed. "You're remembering it wrong."

"Sure I am," she retorted. She lifted her legs up around his waist and felt the drag of his skin against hers. "Several thousand pounds of metal and a really big gun would've been helpful today."

"It would've probably contravened some krogan honour code."

"You," she said, and twisted her legs sharply, rolling them both back over so that he was sprawled beneath her. "Are laughing at me."

"Never."

"Very funny, Vakarian."

"You remember the Conduit? On Ilos?"

"That is something I don't think I'll ever forget," she said, softly. She let her weight settle over his hips and turned her attention to his chest, sliding her fingers across rough skin and hard plating.

"I didn't," he said. "Well. There was a moment when I thought the whole damn Mako was either going to explode around us or else we'd be coming down on the long side of a big drop on the other side."

"Yeah," she said, and leaned her cheek against his shoulder. "I may have thought something quite similar."

"But then I remembered just how much I wanted to introduce Saren to my rifle."

"Made you feel better?"

"A little," he answered, wryly.

"Yeah," she said, almost sighing the word out against him. "I know what you mean. Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Stay there," Shepard said. Gracelessly, she clawed her way off him and past the end of the bed. "You know what I'm thinking?"

"Reapers," he answered.

"Yeah. One specific Reaper that has been rather plaguing my thoughts lately."

"Shepard," he said, and levered himself up on one elbow. "Three years ago – hell, two years ago, I never quite thought I'd hear myself say this, but if you want to go poking around inside a dead Reaper, I'll be there."

She laughed. "Thanks, I think."

She crossed the floor, aware of his gaze as he watched her. She paused at the desk and hit the comm button. "Lawson, you still awake?"

An instant fled past, and Lawson responded, "Commander. What do you need?"

"The briefing room, as soon as we hit the day cycle tomorrow. Bring me everything you have on Doctor Chandana's team and their findings."

"Of course, Commander. Anything else?"

"I want everyone present. We need to talk through how we're going to do this."

"Yes, Shepard."

"So, tell me," Garrus said when she leaned up from the desk. "Do you usually give orders from here while completely naked?"

"Only when you're here, turian."

"Good to know," he answered mildly.

She grinned, and when she dived back onto the sheets beside him, Garrus caught her around the waist and pulled her against him.

"You know," Shepard said, and curled herself against his shoulder. "The dead Reaper's a fair way away."

"Yeah? You had a few thoughts on how to fill the time?"

"Yeah," she said, and smiled. She found his hand, and laced her fingers around his. "I had a few."


	18. Shadows

_As always, a huge thank you to everyone who's following this story - your support is wonderful and very much appreciated. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Eighteen – Shadows**_

The air was all wrong, Garrus thought, and it'd been wrong since they'd stepped inside the damn ship.

_Ship_, he thought, and tightened his grip on his rifle.

_It wasn't a ship, it was a Reaper, and the air was moving all wrong and stagnant and it _tasted_ wrong when he breathed in too deeply. _

They'd found nothing of the science team, and the reports Shepard had unearthed on one of the consoles had made Garrus' stomach lurch. Not that he'd truly expected to find anything good left lying around here, not here, where some of the walls seemed to curve up and over and too high above them. Even so, there had been a full team here, somewhere, and all they'd seen for the better part of two hours was dust and silence.

"Anything?" Shepard asked, tersely.

"Still nothing," Taylor responded, from where he leaned over another workstation. "Just daily work records. Shift rosters. Names and dates. All information we knew before we got here."

"Okay. Then we move on."

The next set of rooms was the same, sterile white walls that would've been stapled together by the science team, trying to carve out some normal space inside this vast hulking emptiness that had been a Reaper.

He'd seen it, standing with Shepard in the cockpit, looking over Joker's shoulder. Still and dark and looking like it had stopped halfway to shattering, the long spars beneath its hull all stiff and unmoving. He supposed it was better that it was dead – _just_, he conceded, because at least if it hadn't been, he wouldn't have been anywhere near this damn close to it – but even so, it made him ache.

He remembered Virmire, and how they'd stumbled through that last door, and seen the spear-shape of another beacon. And how Shepard had touched the thing, and how she'd gone rigid and grey in the face and Alenko had caught her as her whole body crumpled.

And afterwards, they'd seen Sovereign, its projection scarlet and filling the huge chamber.

_Garrus swallowed and found that his mouth was dry. Shepard was staring at the thing, her lips pressed bloodlessly together. The scarlet light flickered again, and when it spoke, its voice was deep and measured and it cut like frost to Garrus' core. _

_ "I don't," he murmured. "I don't think this is a VI." _

_ "No," Shepard said, her eyes never once leaving it. _

_ He stared at it and tried to make out some detail, some definition amid the scarlet lines and spikes of it. The _ship_, he thought, and when he made himself look at Shepard again, he saw his thoughts on her face. _

The ship was Sovereign and Sovereign was _this thing_ that claimed to be sentient and machine all at once and it was Saren's ship.

_The scarlet light flared, and it said, "Our numbers will darken the sky of every world." _

"Hey," Shepard said, quietly, her shoulder brushing his. "You in there?"

"Yeah," he answered, too fast. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Don't be. This place is, well."

"Spooky as all hell," Jack muttered. "Why'd you make me come here?"

"Something about you being bored to shit on the ship," Shepard retorted mildly.

"Yeah. Okay. I still don't like it."

"I'd be more worried if you did," Shepard said, almost absently. She glanced up ahead and added, "Massani, how's that door coming?"

"Almost done," he answered, and when his omni-tool glowed, he nodded. "I'm reading nothing inside."

"Okay. Then we move in. Slowly and steadily and no one in front of me. Sing out the fucking instant you see or hear anything that's strange."

"God, Shepard," Jack said, her tone almost amused. "Whole damn Reaper's strange. Where do you want me to start?"

Garrus bit back a laugh and settled his rifle against his shoulder. He padded after Shepard, his gaze pinned on the unmoving darkness over her head. _Keep on going_, he thought, because they were damn well stuck inside this thing regardless, and even if the IFF proved to be useless, they needed to work their way to the ship's mass effect core.

_Not a ship_, he thought. It was a Reaper, and again he wondered how it had felt for Saren, walking the halls of Sovereign, the thing that was a ship and something else and something that had its claws deep in Saren's head.

_"It was the ship." Shepard swung her legs off the table and pushed upright. She quartered the floor and snapped out, "All along, it was the fucking ship. Why didn't we know that?"_

_ "How could we know that?" Liara asked. Her hands twisted against each other, and she added, "How could we have known? We were chasing Saren and geth." _

_ "Which really didn't help the minute the big fucking sentient machine started telling us all about how it was going to be our salvation through destruction, or some shit." _

_ "No," Alenko said, and the corners of his mouth moved tiredly. "That's exactly what it said." _

_ "Stow it, LT," Shepard said, as wearily. _

_ She pressed her knuckles against her forehead, and half-watching, Garrus thought she looked wrung through. Bruised and exhausted and he knew she had to be feeling it, the echoes of Virmire, four days and a lifetime in the past. _

_ Alenko still walking painfully and Williams' absence and himself a bundle of fraying nerves. _

_ "Garrus," Shepard said, her head turning towards him. "Can I ask you something?"_

_ "Go ahead."_

_ "Saren. You get a good look at him down on Virmire?"_

_ "Sort of. In between the shooting and the running."_

_ "Yeah," she said, and her expression softened slightly. "He look different to you?" _

_ "You're asking me, because?" he said, and it came out sharper than intended. _

_ "Because you're a turian. And because you're the one who was chasing him down before we even knew the bastard's name." _

_ "Right." He battened down the sudden urge to snarl something unhelpful back at her. "Yeah. He looked different. Sure. He was never quite as, well. Metallic as he looked on Virmire."_

_ Shepard snorted. "That was kind of what I was thinking." _

_ "And?" Liara asked. _

_ "And it's making me wonder who's really in charge, and given what he said on Virmire, I'm willing to bet it sure as hell isn't him anymore." _

"Holy shit," Jack said, almost whisper-quiet. "What the fuck are those?"

"Dragon's teeth," Garrus answered, and the words caught in his throat.

_Dragon's teeth_, he thought. Great big fucking spikes that reached up into the high grey shadows of the ship and he knew if he looked up he'd see the hanging limp shapes of people up there.

"God almighty," Shepard said, softly.

"Looks like an altar," Taylor muttered.

"Yeah. It does." Shepard's gaze never shifted from the towering spikes. "I'd say we can expect trouble further in."

"Shocking," Massani said.

"Funny." She scanned the high empty chamber again, her whole frame coiled and tense and Garrus knew she was listening to the silence, listening to the way the air wasn't moving properly. "Okay. Let's go."

_Garrus knelt and leaned his arm over the gleaming curve of metal. His omni-tool stayed blank, and he wondered if he should touch it, this shining piece of metal that had been part of Sovereign. _

_ Part of Sovereign that had come crashing down into the Presidium and the wrenching, dreadful clamour of it had turned his mind flat with something very like panic. _

_ "Moving it, sir?"_

_ He flinched, and straightened up, and somehow he managed to nod at the kid in the C-Sec uniform. "Yeah. Cart it out with the others." _

_ "Okay." _

_ They'd been at it for days, he knew, clearing through the rubble and brushing up the glass and picking through the detritus. The kid looked worn out, bruised around the eyes with tired shadows, and Garrus wondered where he'd been when the geth swamped the station. _

_ "Hey. Officer Vakarian. Still working?" _

_ "Still working," he answered, and found himself smiling. He turned until he saw Shepard, leaning back against the railing. _

_ "How's it going?"_

_ "Slow and messy. We'll get there. How's the diplomacy going?"_

_ Shepard grimaced. "Yeah. We'll get there. They're talking to me at least. Working out what the hell we're going to do next." _

_ "Good." Beneath his fatigues, his shoulders still ached. "Time for a break?"_

_ "That's the best idea I've heard all day." _

_ He walked her to a quiet restaurant he knew would be open, and after he'd ordered them both drinks – she insisted on coffee, which he guessed meant she was still on duty – he asked, "You're okay?"_

_ "Yeah." She leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Took a few days to start sleeping better."_

_ "Yeah. I know what you mean." _

_ "So. Sovereign," she said, carefully. "All nicely tidied away?"_

_ "I think so." He scowled and added, "Actually I don't know. I think we're getting there. I just don't like the idea that bits of it might be, well. I don't know."_

_ "I understand," Shepard said. _

_ "How's the Council?"_

_ "Stubborn," she said, and her teeth flashed in a grin. "But then, so am I, and right now, I don't have a Reaper to distract me, so they're going to have to start listening." _

_ "You think they will?"_

_ "I don't know. I look around now and I think that they can't afford not to listen. Hell, we know Sovereign meant what it said. He said. Whichever."_

_ "It," Garrus said mildly. "I think." _

_ "I'll take your word for it." She lifted the mug again. "I should get back to it. I have meetings that I don't want to go to, and then later I have to go and be told all officially that I helped save the Citadel. Dress uniform and everything." _

_ He grinned. "I didn't know you even had a dress uniform."_

_ "Screw you, Vakarian." She met his grin over the top of the mug and added, "You're coming too, by the way." _

_ "Wonderful." _

"Shepard," Taylor said. "I read movement."

"Yeah, I see it."

Garrus paused, his feet lightly braced. He kept his gaze fixed on the sliding shadows and when he saw the first of the husks – _slithering and jostling and their mouths gaping and their eyes all white and dead – _he settled his rifle against his shoulder. There were too damn many of them, he thought. He sighted and fired and moved before the first husk crumpled properly. He was aware of Shepard, somewhere ahead of him, and the crackle and hiss as Taylor threw a tangle of energy. Massani closed up beside him, his rifle flaring as he fired.

Too many and all of them running raggedly and pressing forward and Garrus fixed on another and squeezed the trigger. Smoothly, he turned and sighted on another, and another.

"Jack," Shepard snapped. "Clear us a path."

Garrus had time to press his shoulders back against the railing, and then Jack's whole frame blazed blue. The energy roared into the husks and sent them scrambling and stumbling. As fast, Shepard's next round swept into them.

"There's a fucking lot of them," Jack muttered.

"Yeah. Too many."

Garrus silently agreed and as carefully, he trailed Shepard through another corridor. _Except_, he thought, _it wasn't a real corridor, it was mostly the scaffolding put up by the Cerberus science team, and it was cutting through the high empty spaces of the Reaper. _

Ahead, the floor rose into a steep incline, crowded on both sides with workstations and two monitors and half-unpacked equipment crates. A shadow slanted across the corridor, and when another husk moved out and into the grey light, Shepard lifted her rifle.

A shot rang out, whipcrack fast, and the husk toppled.

"Sniper," Garrus said. "Anyone see the shooter?"

"Nothing from here," Taylor answered. "Science team, maybe? A survivor?"

"Maybe." Shepard eyed the expanse of the corridor for a thoughtful moment. "Let's go find out."

* * *

><p>Of all the things she'd expected to stumble into inside a dead Reaper, Shepard thought, a talking geth with a mean aim was not on her list. The thing had loomed out of the darkness above them, and it had looked half-finished. Gaping coils of wiring and a shoulder-piece that looked suspiciously like it had been pried off <em>her<em> old N7 armour and _her name_ coming out in its neutral voice.

_It knew about her_, she thought, and wondered why that troubled her.

It knew about her and it had turned and vanished into the gantries over her head and now it was here, slumped on the floor in front of the Reaper's whirling mass effect core.

_What_, she wondered, _had it wanted, and why the hell had it chosen _now_ to come scope out the ship? _

"Shepard," Massani called. "We got more of the bastards down here."

"Keep them pushed back," she responded, without turning. "As soon as the core fails, we'll need a damn fast exit out of here."

"Nice to know you always have a plan, Shepard," he shot back at her.

"Hey," she responded, and fired another burst into the glowing core. "You can come up here and wait for this thing to explode in your face instead, if you want."

"I'll pass, Shepard. Thanks."

She grinned and lined up another shot. She took her time, her eyes on the core through every volley. Beside her, Garrus did the same, never once looking away from the sputtering edges of the core.

"There," he said, tersely. "Slow it down."

"Yeah." Over her shoulder, she said, "Massani, you and Jack start making your way back out. Taylor, you take the geth and go with them."

"You're sure?" Jack asked.

"We'll catch up."

"Shepard," Garrus said. "The geth? Really?"

"It talked, Garrus. It's worth lugging it out of here for that alone."

"Yeah. I just…it's a geth."

"Yeah. And like all geth, if we turn it on and it does something we don't like, we can shoot it until it stops."

Garrus snorted. "Fair enough."

"Alright," Taylor said, and knelt. He grasped the geth's loose arm and slung it up and over his shoulder. "I swear though, this thing wakes up, I'm dropping it and then I'm shooting it."

"You're allowed." Shepard waited until the sound of them retreated, footsteps quick and cautious against the floor. Another moment stretched out impatiently, until she heard the surging thud of Jack's biotics, and Massani shouting back that the doorway was cleared.

"Okay?" she asked, and Garrus nodded.

She raised her rifle again, and with Garrus firing in tandem, she whittled away at the core until it sparked and hissed and glowed painfully bright.

"Okay," Garrus said. "It's dying. Move back."

With her shoulder against his, she stepped away from it, still firing into its crackling maw. Another round vanished into it, and the edges of it blurred and buckled. It was caving in, she knew, and she could feel it in the ship, rumbling under her feet.

She looked across at Garrus and saw her own thoughts in his eyes. She nodded, and then she was turning, bolting back across the catwalk towards the far doors. He matched her pace, and together they hurtled back out into the corridor. Another harried burst of speed took her down the slope and through another set of doors, Garrus two paces behind her.

"Taylor?" She raised her arm and snapped, "Massani? Any of you reading me?"

Her comm unit crackled, and Massani growled, "On our way."

"ETA?"

"No fucking clue. Somewhere ahead of you. Just hurry the hell up."

Beneath her boots, the ship was shaking. She heard Garrus' ragged shout, and looked up in time to see a dozen husks as they shambled through the next archway.

"Grenade," she said, and slowed her pace.

He nodded, and one smooth motion had a grenade unhooked from his waist. Another had the pin out and the grenade sailing through the gloom. It skittered into the husks, and after the thud of the explosion faded, she mopped up the last three standing with a single volley.

"You know," Garrus said, between hitching breaths. "I'm sure the ship wasn't this damn big on the way in."

Shepard laughed, and when Garrus quickened pace, she pelted to keep up. She skidded around the next corner behind him, and when the whole ship lurched horribly, she grabbed at his wrist. He steadied her, his arm sliding around her shoulders. The ship canted again, the floor shifting under her, and they held onto each other for a long, swaying moment.

"That was a little close." She stumbled away from him, and when the floor trembled under them again, she hauled him along behind her. She cleared the next stretch of corridor, and the sharp corner beyond, and when another high grey archway loomed, she snarled, "Joker? You copy?"

"I hear you," Joker answered, his voice cracking with static. "Just."

"The others?"

"Just got themselves on board. Tell me you're close."

"Seconds," she said, and overhead, the high curving walls of the Reaper shook. She pushed on through the archway, Garrus somewhere close behind her. Up ahead, she could see the ship side of the docking airlock they'd used, and then they were running through the last door and out into the sickly reddish haze of the atmosphere that was wrapped around the Reaper.

"Okay, I see you," Joker said, his voice clipped and uneven. "Stay there."

The walkway – _it wasn't a walkway, not really, it was some fucking spine that ran around the side of the Reaper's hull_ – tilted sharply, and she staggered against Garrus again. She waited, feet braced and trying desperately not to listen to the shuddering noise of the Reaper.

_No mass effect fields buoying it up and the insides of its core torn out and it was going to fall and fall fast. _

She heard Joker's voice, blurred by static, and the _Normandy_ filled the bruise-coloured sky, the side airlock already sliding open.

"That's us," Shepard said, almost breathless.

She grabbed at Garrus' arm and yanked and shoved off with both feet. The odd, cushioning feeling of the weightless, empty air caught at her.

_Weightless, turned upside down and clawing at her helmet and trying to gulp down breaths that weren't happening and everything felt like it was on fire and _that wasn't now and she breathed in deeply and slowly.

Her hand juddered against the side of the airlock, and when she lunged upward, Taylor grasped her arm and pulled. Her knees hit solid floor, and beside her, she was aware of Massani as he steadied Garrus up and into the airlock.

"Shepard," Joker said. "We really need to go."

"Go," she answered, and motioned the others through the airlock and into the cool gloom of the corridor.

She felt the slight thrum of the engines, and when Joker affirmed that he'd spun the _Normandy_ away from the collapsing Reaper, she nodded. "Good work, Joker."

"Yeah, I love it when you give me two seconds to get us out alive."

"You live for it," she responded, almost automatically. She fumbled with her helmet and asked, "The geth?"

"Locked up in the AI core," Taylor replied.

"Okay. Debrief with me in forty minutes. Go cool off and clean up." She turned, and threw a tired smile to Garrus. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "I want it on record that I'm never doing that again."

"Noted."

"_You_ okay?"

"Yeah." Shepard paused, and for a long moment she simply looked up and into his face. "I think I should go talk to Tali."

* * *

><p>Shepard swung her feet up onto the bench and ignored the slide of sweat at the nape of her neck. "You haven't told me what you think yet."<p>

"I don't know what I think," Tali said, very quietly. Her back was still turned, and her fingers were busy, flickering across a keyboard. "I just…you said it spoke."

"It did. It said my name."

"Your name."

"Well. It called me _Shepard-Commander_."

"I don't know." Tali turned, finally, her hands clasped over her belt. "I'm sorry, Shepard. I don't know what to tell you. It's a live geth."

"I know. It _helped_ us, though."

"Accidentally?"

"I wondered that." She shook her head and added, "Sure, it could've knocked off a few husks on its own. But then it damn well saw us, and kept shooting husks. And it stayed there long enough to say my name and make fucking sure that _we knew _it had seen us."

"You'd have to be careful. If you really want to activate it again."

"Yeah. I have no issue introducing it to both my gun and the airlock should it do something that pisses me off."

Tali laughed. She sat beside Shepard, folding her hands in her lap. "Look. I want to tell you to get rid of it right now. But I'm hardly the unbiased party here."

"Funny."

"I was being serious," Tali said, slightly wryly. "All I'd advise is slowly and carefully. And I don't want to walk into it in the mess hall."

Shepard choked on a sudden laugh. "I promise."

"So," Tali said, lightly, and nudged her. "What's this about you and Garrus spending a whole lot of time together?"

"Hey, what?" Shepard grinned and retorted, "I come down here to ask your advice about a living breathing geth, and you're shaking me down."

"Geth don't breathe."

"Yeah, yeah. And yeah, we've been spending time together. Me and Garrus, I mean."

"Good," Tali said, slightly archly. She tapped her fingers against her knees and blurted, "Look, if you do want it turned back on. I can help you with it."

"You don't have to do that."

"You don't know how geth work."

"I know how to shoot them." Shepard rubbed her knuckles against the corner of one eye. "I'd appreciate it, as long as you don't mind."

"I do mind. But I'm, well. I don't know."

"Professional curiosity?"

"Something like that," Tali said, quieter.

"Yeah." Shepard shoved upright, and beneath the encasing weight of her armour, her shoulders ached. "Okay. Let's go see what my XO recommends."

* * *

><p>Two hours later, Shepard slipped under the sheets and curled herself against the slope of Garrus' shoulder. They'd worked their gear off quietly, almost silently, and when she looked at him, she thought he looked as drained as she probably did.<p>

"That fucking Reaper," she said, her lips moving against his bare chest.

"Yeah," he answered, heavily. His arm tightened around her waist, his fingers cupping over her hip. "I keep thinking about it."

"I know."

"Talk to one Reaper and then walk around inside another. I think I need a new job."

"You'd get bored."

"Yeah. I just, hell." His blue gaze dipped away from her and back again, slightly uncertain. "Did you feel it?"

"Yeah. It wasn't empty. Not really. And I don't mean just because of the science team."

"Yeah."

"And there was that moment where I wondered if it was going to go and wake up on us."

"Nice to know I wasn't the only one thinking that," Garrus said, drily.

"Of course, I'm not sure what the fuck I'd've done if it _had_ woken up."

"I imagine we'd've run out of it a bit quicker."

"Just a bit," she said, and swallowed a sudden, unbidden laugh. "God. I just think about us charging through the Omega-4 relay and then I wonder if we're going to run smack into a whole wall of Reapers."

"A whole wall. That's a lot of Reapers."

"You're so funny."

"I know." He combed his hand down her side, the inside of his palm warm and slightly rough. "Sometimes it's the waiting that's worse."

"Yeah. I just don't want our shiny new IFF to do anything until EDI's picked it apart."

"Yeah. And until then you have a friendly geth to play with."

Shepard groaned. "Yeah. That too."

"You wanted to keep it."

"Yeah, yeah." She traced her fingers down to the angular jut of his hip. "You know what I was thinking earlier?"

"That we could use a vacation."

"After we save the galaxy. It's crazy, but when we were there today, I kept wondering what the hell it felt like for Saren."

"You mean the first time he wandered up Sovereign's loading ramp. Yeah. I was thinking that, too."

Shepard snorted. "Nice." She moved, rolling so that she was pressed properly against Garrus' chest, one thigh hooked around his waist and one of his legs between both of hers. "Do they even have loading ramps?"

"Next time we get close to one," he answered. "I'll ask."

She laughed, and when she leaned the side of her face against his shoulder, she felt it again, the slow surging tiredness. "You know I'll hold you to that."

Garrus laughed, and then she felt the sheltering weight of his hand against the back of her head, holding her against him. "I know it."


	19. Gambit

_A huge thank-you to everyone who is following this story - your support is wonderful and very much appreciated. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Nineteen – Gambit**_

Garrus woke to rumpled sheets and the sound of running water. He swung his feet onto the floor and padded across to the small bathroom. Pausing at the door, he called, "Busy?"

"Completely," Shepard retorted.

He stepped into the haze of steam and his gaze found her, head bowed beneath the fall of the water and her skin shining and wet. "Mmm," Garrus murmured. "You look very good."

She grinned through runnels of water. "Come scrub my back for me?"

"Among other things?" he responded, and was rewarded when she laughed.

"Soaking wet humans a turn-on now?"

"Soaking wet _you_," he replied immediately.

He ducked under the water and wrapped his arms around her waist. She was lean, all muscle and the press of her shoulderblades and the flare of her hips. Wordlessly, Garrus pulled her back against his chest.

"Oh," Shepard murmured. "You _are_ interested."

"Mmm," he mumbled in agreement. He licked at the back of her neck, and the soft patch beneath her ear, and just beneath the angle of her jaw.

She sighed something, and her hand closed over his. He let her guide his fingers down to the junction of her thighs. He stroked, opening her until she was rocking back against him. Very gently, he bit her shoulder, and watched as the water rushed over the small indentations there. She shuddered, her whole body rippling against his.

Garrus cupped one hand beneath her leg, lifting her slightly. He waited until she had her hands braced against the wall, and then one deep thrust had him buried in her.

"Garrus," Shepard said, almost breathless. "You drop me, I'll kill you."

He growled, and when he drove himself into her, she groaned and arched back against him. Somehow he unlatched one hand from her hip. He pressed his fingers into the slippery folds between her legs again, circling and teasing until she jolted against him. She gasped out his name, and then he was following her, falling off the brink into his own climax.

"God," Shepard murmured. Shakily, she slid down him until both her feet were planted on the floor again. She turned in his arms, blinking through the falling water. She kissed his chest and tugged his head down so she could do the same to the side of his face and the ridges above his eyes. "Mmm. Nice."

"Your fault," he said mildly. He nuzzled his forehead against hers. "Did you actually want me to scrub your back for you?"

"Well," she said, and grinned. "While you're here anyway."

* * *

><p>Fifty minutes later, Shepard looked at the geth, its tapering head tipped up and its whole frame still and silent.<p>

"Commander," Lawson said, from where she stood beside the door. "You're certain?"

"Yes." For another long moment, Shepard regarded it, all long metal limbs and blank lights and coils of exposed wiring across the hole in its chest. "I'm sure. Tali? You ready?"

"One second." Tali's gloved fingers flicked across her omni-tool again. "Okay," she said, and it came out in an uneven rush. "Ready."

"Alright." Shepard eased one hand onto her pistol. "Activate it."

She waited, her gaze pinned on the geth. She was aware of Tali beside her, and Garrus' patient presence on her other side, and then the geth was stirring, undulating upright. Its hands stretched up and outward and brushed the shimmering edges of the containment field.

"Can you hear me?" Shepard asked.

"Yes," the geth answered. "Shepard-Commander."

"You know my name. Why?"

"We know of you," the geth said.

"Why? Because of what happened with Saren?"

"Because," the geth said, and its head moved, lifting. "You fought the heretics."

"Heretics," Shepard echoed. "What do you mean?"

_"Take your time," Shepard said. She steadied the young woman a moment longer and asked, "You got a name?"_

_ "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. I was with the 212."_

_ Shepard didn't miss the roughness in the young woman's voice, or her words, or the grey shadows around her eyes. "Okay, Williams. Take it slow and tell me what happened." _

_ Williams nodded. "Yes, ma'am." _

Geth_, Shepard thought, _fucking geth_, and when Williams' voice caught and cracked, she understood. _

_ She'd seen them through the haze, uncurling upright and silvery and they _should not _have been there. They should've been somewhere else, hiding themselves away behind the Perseus Veil and keeping themselves to themselves and away from the rest of the galaxy. _

_ But they were here on Eden Prime and she already had a KIA status minutes into her mission and a Council Spectre somewhere ahead of them. So she gave Williams another instant to gather herself, and then she was pushing them all on, Alenko flanking her and Williams following him, and she tried not to think about how the hell they were meant to go up against geth and come back breathing. _

"Sorry," Shepard said, slowly. "You're saying that you want to _join _us?"

The geth was still looking at her, its eyes – _except it didn't _have_ fucking eyes, it had a blaze of white light in the middle of its serpentine head – _fixed on her face.

Old Machines, it had said. Reapers that had snaked out their influence and sent Sovereign to the geth to hunt down allies. The Old Machines who had gathered heretics who no longer understood what it was like to be true geth.

"Yes," the geth said, eventually. "Shepard-Commander opposes the Old Machines. Shepard-Commander opposes the heretics. Co-operation furthers mutual goals."

"Yes," Shepard said, partly to fill the strange, stretching silence. "It does. If you're going to stick around, what should we call you?"

* * *

><p>"Legion," Garrus said, as he reached for the sparring pads. "And that's not ominous at all."<p>

"Hey," Shepard retorted. "It was EDI's idea."

"You trust it?"

"No." She balanced her weight on spread feet and rolled her shoulders. "I don't. Aside from that, I don't know what to think. EDI's keeping the _Normandy_'s systems isolated. Between her and Tali, I figure we'll catch it if it tries sinking its claws into anything."

"Yeah." Garrus yanked the straps tight around the back of his hands. "Just feels weird."

"Yeah. I can certainly say that I did not wake up today intending to shake a geth's hand."

Garrus laughed. "I hear you. Ready?"

"Ready," she answered.

She threw herself at him, methodical and fast, and each thumping stroke sank into the centre of the pads. He moved with her, never once relaxing his stance. Almost mechanically, she matched him across the floor and back again, until the rhythm of it began to burn beneath her shoulders.

She wondered what the geth was thinking – _programming, concluding, whatever the hell it was doing_ – where it sat up in the AI core. She'd left it there, standing motionlessly, and she'd almost wanted to ask if she could bring it anything, sort anything out shipboard for it, like she would've if it'd had been anyone else.

_Any_thing_ else_, she thought.

"Good geth and bad geth," Garrus remarked. He sidestepped slightly, and when she twisted to follow him, he added, "Maybe they should carry signs. Help us tell them apart."

Shepard laughed. "There's an idea." She spun again, her fists cracking hard into the pads. She swung her weight forward and pushed off on one foot and her shoulder stiffened at the impact. "Okay. I'm done."

She leaned her shoulders back against the wall and watched absently as he loosened the straps with his teeth. When he had the pads shrugged off his hands, she helped him with the rest of the gear.

"You know what really bothers me about this?"

"About Legion?" Garrus shook his head. "What?"

"We didn't know any of this," she answered. "What else don't we know?"

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

"Reapers, geth, Collectors," she said, and clicked the last locker shut. "Sometimes it feels like we're slogging around in the dark while someone else changes the rules."

"Yeah," Garrus said, evenly. "Is that really any different from normal?"

"Maybe not. Or maybe it just means that normal really isn't."

He laughed. "Shepard. Between you and Cerberus and the Reapers, you really want my opinion on that?"

"Thanks," she retorted, and nudged him gently.

"Besides, there's always a positive if you dig hard enough."

"Yeah? And what is it this time?"

"It's not like Legion's going to eat all our food."

Shepard laughed. "Funny."

"Someone has to be," he said. Gently, he rested his hands over her hips.

"Naturally," she responded. She ran her thumbs along the underside of his jaw and added, "I want another long and sincere talk with our new geth. Then I'll think about taking him off the ship and letting him shoot things."

"You're sure?"

"He's a hell of a shot," she said, and frowned. "It. You know what I mean."

"I'm better," Garrus said, and brushed his mouth against the side of her face. "And I knew what you meant."

"You're arrogant," she retorted, and when he pulled her closer, she sank properly against his chest. He was solid and warm and when his hands slid lower, cupping the backs of her thighs, she murmured appreciatively.

Garrus moved, lifting her and turning slightly in the same motion, so that her back was braced against the wall and her legs were hooked up and around his waist.

"Smooth," Shepard said, half-laughing, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

"Commander," EDI said, and Shepard could've _sworn_ she sounded slightly amused.

"Yes, EDI?"

"Samara has requested a meeting."

"Okay. Thanks, EDI. Let her know I'll be right down."

"Yes, Shepard."

"You know," Shepard said, her lips ghosting against the edges of Garrus' mouth. "You'll have to put me down now."

"Shame," he responded, drily. He lingered there, arms tightly around her for another wonderful instant before he loosened his grip. "Catch up later?"

* * *

><p>"No guns," Garrus repeated, slowly. "No guns and no armour. On Omega. To track down an asari who basically swallows people's minds."<p>

"I didn't say swallow."

"It's still a terrible plan."

"I know," Shepard said, and curled herself against the slope of his shoulder. Her fingers played over his chest until she found the softer patches just above his waist. "But if Samara needs it, then we try it. Hell, Garrus. The woman's been hunting her own daughter for centuries."

"Yeah," Garrus said, uselessly. He'd seen the Justicar on Ilium, and he'd found himself strung between feeling sorry as hell for the cop who'd had to deal with her and vaguely impressed that the Justicar did what she had to.

"What's bothering you?"

"I don't know," he answered, and it was only half-true. "Knowing it's a trap doesn't make it seem any nicer."

"Yeah," she said, gentler. She pressed her lips against his shoulder, and the side of his neck. "I don't like the bait part either."

"Shepard?"

"Yes?"

"You going to laugh if I tell you to be careful?"

"Course I will. Course, I'll also be punching the soul-sucking asari bitch in the face should the need arise."

Garrus laughed. "That sounds like a thoroughly thought-out plan."

"You," she said, and one lithe rolling motion had her straddling him. "Are such a critic."

"Me?" He leaned up so that he could breathe her in, heat and salt and the tantalizing awareness that he could smell himself on her skin and in her mouth. "Never."

* * *

><p>Garrus paced the length of his quarters and back and tried to stifle the urge to do it again. <em>Hours<em>, he thought. _She'd been gone hours on Omega, and the last they'd heard, she'd messaged in to say that she was on her way to Afterlife_.

He'd been down to the sparring room and afterwards, he'd taken himself up to the observation deck and glared at the jagged spines of the station. _Anywhere else_, he thought, half angrily. Anywhere else and the damn asari might be an afterthought and _he_ might have been able to distract himself down in engineering.

_"Hey," Butler said. "You okay in there?"_

_ "What?" Garrus jerked his head up. His hands hovered over his armour, half-cleaned. He was aching, from the way he was crouched over the bench and from the awful, needling knowledge that Garm had slithered back into the station's shadows and he knew he was damned if he was going to catch the bastard shorthanded again any time soon. _

_ "Nothing," Butler said, softer. "You just looked, I don't know. Somewhere else."_

_ "Yeah. Sorry. Long day." _

_ "You want a drink?"_

_ "On duty?" Garrus barked out a laugh and straightened up. "You're picking up all my bad habits." _

_ Butler yanked the locker open and reached inside. "Whatever you say." _

Omega had ended badly, _really fucking badly,_ and before he could fill his thoughts with something else – _his sparring count, whatever he'd seen was on offer down in the mess hall tonight, Shepard, Shepard smiling beneath him _– it rose up and drowned him and he clenched his hands until it almost hurt.

_Something hard cracked against his shoulder and spun him. Something else hit him further up and drove him to his knees. He breathed in raggedly and found that he couldn't. His tongue pushed at the back of his teeth and he tasted the hot wetness of his own blood. The heels of his hands skittered against the slick floor and he wondered where his rifle was. _

_ "Garrus!" _

_His name. She was shouting his name, he was almost certain, and part of him wondered why. He tried to move, tried to shove up to his feet, but his whole body was heavy and reluctant. _

He made it across the floor and out through the door before his heartbeat slowed down. He simmered in the elevator, and when he finally stalked into the mess hall, he forced his thoughts blank. He found a tray and food and absently, he listened while something Massani said made Chambers laugh. He ate slowly, and afterwards, he let Donnelly bully him down to engineering for cards. He wasted the better part of an hour, and by the time he'd meandered back up to the crew deck, his omni-tool flashed.

"Yeah?"

"I'm still alive," Shepard's voice answered, and he thought that she sounded tired and worn. "Where are you lurking?"

"On my way to my quarters."

"Stay there. I'll be down once I'm cleaned up."

In his cabin, he sat on the end of the bed, his eyes pinned on a report, until the door opened and Shepard stepped in, clad in crisp fatigues and still smelling of soap.

"Hey," Garrus said mildly.

"You know," she said, as the door slid closed behind her. "I cannot for the life of me understand what Aria T'Loak sees in Omega."

"It's her playground. You saw her?"

"Yeah. We had ourselves a nice little chat." Shepard grinned, crookedly. "She's a mine of information when she wants to be."

"True enough." Wordlessly, he waited while she crossed the floor. She sank onto the mattress beside him and leaned the side of her head against his shoulder and something inside him eased. "You okay?"

"Yeah. It was…I don't know. Samara killed her. Her daughter, I mean."

"What happened?"

"Her daughter had killed a kid. A girl, young girl from the tenements. Aria put us in contact with the kid's mother, and we traced the asari back to Afterlife."

"And she took the bait."

"Yes." Shepard sighed, and added, "She did. We ended up back in her swanky little apartment, she looked at me with these big, black and fucking terrifying eyes, and then Samara broke her neck."

"You've got such a way with words."

"Took her centuries, Garrus," Shepard said, quietly.

"Samara's okay?"

"She'll be okay." Shepard lifted her head and asked, "So. Did I miss anything?"

"I lost a round of poker to Donnelly."

She laughed. "You did not."

"He's pretty good," Garrus protested.

She leaned into his shoulder again, pushing gently until he surrendered and fell back against the sheets. "Mmm," she mumbled, and burrowed under the slope of his arm. "Better."

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm getting used to you being around."

"_Getting_ used?"

"Like this, you smartass turian."

"Yeah," he said. "I know what you mean."

He let his hand roam down to the dip at the small of her back. He tugged up the hem of her shirt and kneaded the soft skin there, tight over bands of muscle. He found the base of her ribcage and when he pressed his fingertips under the hard ridge of bone, she laughed.

"Garrus, you're being weird."

"Sorry. Exploring."

"I forgive you." She stroked the side of his neck, and further up, her fingers gentle against the raised edges of his scars. "Are _you_ okay?"

"What do you mean?"

"Omega."

"Yeah," he said, and shook his head. "No. It stuck with me all day."

She didn't prod him, didn't try to cajole him into talking too quickly, and some vaguely guilty part of him recognized that he should've known she wouldn't.

"It was," he said, and stopped again. "It wasn't all that long, I guess. When I was there. It just feels like it was a long time, thinking about it."

"Yeah," she said, softly.

"I tried to think that it was the asari that was bothering me. You and the asari. You unarmed. It wasn't that, not really."

"I don't know," Shepard said, drily. "It wasn't all that great. I got to go to a club and not drink, and then I had to pretend to be interested in what she was saying."

"You would've made a wretched cop, Shepard."

"Thanks."

"And then I thought," he said, and leaned his chin against the top of her head. He could feel her breathing, soft and relaxed beneath his arms. "Then I thought it was just that it was Omega. Make sense?"

"Yeah, it does." She stirred, and he felt the damp pressure of her mouth against his throat. "You were there too long."

"Didn't know where else to go."

"Yeah, I get it. I do." She wriggled away from him, raising her head so that he could see her smiling. "Besides, I was lying down on the job at the time, I recall."

Garrus choked on a laugh. "Shepard. That's terrible."

"Forgive me?"

"I think I can manage that." He reached for her, pushing his hand through her hair, ruffled and dark and springing back against his palm. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

Garrus ran his thumb down the side of her face until he felt the thump of her pulse, trapped in the soft skin beneath her jaw. "You were gone too long."


	20. Snare

_A huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story - your support and appreciation means so much, thank you. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty – Snare**_

The morning found Shepard in Lawson's office, too aware of the glaringly white walls and far too tempted to swing her feet up onto her XO's meticulously clean desk.

"This looks good," Shepard said, her gaze still on the report in her hands. "EDI's gotten through it fast."

"Yes, Commander." Lawson leaned forward and added, "I'd recommend at least one final round of testing."

"Yes, I know," Shepard said. She stared down at the screen, at the lines and tangles that, according to EDI's notes, made up the layers of the IFF code. "I agree. I'd rather not have the ship explode when we go through the Omega-4 relay."

"My thoughts entirely," Lawson said, and the corners of her mouth curved upward slightly. "I'll have briefings sent out to the crew. I don't expect there to be any difference, but I'd rather have them all aware."

"Nothing like knowing the leap of faith is hurtling upon you." Shepard pushed one hand through her hair. "Thank you."

"Commander, can I ask about the geth?"

"It hasn't killed anyone yet," Shepard answered, and shot Lawson a lopsided grin. "I've been talking to it. It's been willing to hand over information concerning this division between geth it keeps talking about. I know you have reservations, and I understand that. I'd just prefer to treat this as a source of useful information, and until the geth does something I don't like, we're keeping it around."

"Yes, Commander."

"Good. Was there anything else?"

Lawson shook her head. Shepard moved, pushing halfway out of the chair, her thoughts already jumping to the shift change and how she'd planned to check in with Jack and drop in on Tali on her way back up through engineering.

"Commander?"

"Yes?"

"Actually," Lawson said, and her voice roughened slightly. "There is something I need to ask you."

_She'd taken herself around the ship again, and again, checking each bulkhead and keypad and supply locker. She'd lost herself in the armoury, her fingers sliding over the gleaming lines of pistols and rifles and ammo stacks, and when Taylor had marched in, she'd nearly jumped sky-high. _

_ The Cerberus staff saluted when she passed them, some of them more clumsily than others, and every time she crossed through the CIC, Chambers looked at her. The kids down in engineering – Donnelly, she recalled, and his more incisive counterpart Daniels – had jolted to attention and nodded at every word she said. _

_ She discovered herself hovering back in the XO's doorway, and when Lawson beckoned her in, she was almost glad of the distraction. _

_ "Dossiers," Lawson said, and she did not look up from her desk. "For Omega. And crew lists for you." _

_ "Thank you."_

_ "Service records, backgrounds. Anything you might want to ask afterwards, feel free."_

_She _knew_ how to comb through personnel files, and she _knew_ how to plan the sort of shorthanded operation she'd be taking down to Omega – to chase down a salarian doctor and some mercenary type calling himself Archangel – but she could not quite marshal the right words. Not with the way it still felt strange, not with the way she was too aware of every footstep against the floor, too aware of the way the dry ship air touched the back of her neck. _

"_Do you need anything else, Commander?"_

"_No, thank you, Lawson."_

Shepard paused. "Something you want to talk about?"

"Yes." Lawson clasped her hands on the desk, ivory and knitted too tightly together. "I realise that this is a little, well. Unprofessional."

"Lawson. You need to talk about something, we can talk about it." Shepard flopped down into the chair again. "Look. I don't like your boss, and I don't like Cerberus. But if nothing else, you're an absurdly organized XO." When Lawson's expression stayed frozen, Shepard added, "And there may have been the whole bringing me back to life thing."

"Yes, Commander," Lawson said, a little softer. "Thank you."

"So. Talk to me, then."

"This is complicated."

"Life's complicated."

"Yes, it is," Lawson said. Her gaze lifted, blue and implacable. "It's about my sister."

* * *

><p>"Ilium again," Garrus said, and turned his attention back to the catches on his shoulder-plates. He ran his fingertips across them and added, "Nice place. Shiny on top of seething corruption."<p>

"Could be worse," Shepard remarked.

"Could it?"

"It could be Noveria."

"Fair enough." His mandibles flared into a grin. "You want me to come?"

"Unless you had some other pressing business."

"I'm sure I can clear up some space on my schedule."

She laughed. "I'm flattered."

"You should be. Plan?"

"Lawson's bullying her contacts at the moment. She'll send me details, and we can work around that." She watched the elegant motion of his hands as he lifted another blue piece of his armour down from the rack. "You, me, Lawson. Jack wants out and about. I'll ask Samara and Krios."

"Yeah." Garrus smoothed his thumbs over a slight dent across one of his greaves, and she was almost sure she could see him scowling. "Should I admit that I'm surprised that Lawson has a sister?"

"Hell," Shepard said, half-laughing. "I thought you were going to say that you were surprised she has a heart."

Garrus snorted. "Nice."

"She's worried." Shepard shook her head. She remembered how Lawson's voice had turned sandy and hurried and filled with something that sounded like exhausted concern. "Really worried, Garrus."

"I believe you," he said, gentler. "Sometimes feeling helpless is worse than feeling afraid."

"Yeah, it is. Least when you're shit-scared of something, you've got something to focus on at least." Shepard frowned. "That sounded better in my head."

"I knew what you meant."

"At least someone understands me," she said, slightly wryly. "You get the briefing?"

"From Lawson? Yes. You sure about it?"

"No," Shepard answered, quietly honest. "I don't like the idea of letting the IFF run through our systems. Not because, well. I trust that EDI's picked her way through it. That's not the issue."

"The issue is that we found it in a dead Reaper."

"Yeah," she said, and smiled despite herself. "That's the concise way of putting it."

"But?"

"But," she answered. "No choice."

"Yeah," Garrus said. He turned, his shoulder brushing against hers. "Story of my life."

"Oh, really?" she asked, deliberately arch.

"You know," he said, and curled an arm around her waist, drawing her against him. "I think whatever I say right now, it's going to be wrong."

She laughed. She reached for him, sliding her hands around the back of his neck and felt his soft, sighing response. "You know," she echoed. "I think you might be right."

* * *

><p>Shepard sat with her feet slung up on the bench opposite and wondered what the kid could possibly be thinking. Her name was Oriana, Lawson had said, and looking at her sidelong, Shepard thought she could see some of Lawson in her. The way the kid moved, she thought, all contained grace, the corners of her eyes softening slightly as she talked to her sister.<p>

They'd cleared the docking area briskly enough, and now, trying not to listen as Lawson said something about not needing thanks, Shepard found her head all full of the IFF and the prickling awareness that it must be working its way through her ship's navigation computers.

_Lines of code_, she thought. Lines of code that were just signals that were just another piece of equipment she needed to get herself closer to the Collectors.

"Commander," Lawson said.

"Yes?"

"Ready to go," Lawson said, slowly.

"You're sure?"

"Yes."

On the shuttle, Lawson stayed wordless, her face all pinched and drawn, and Shepard wondered how much of what she'd said to her sister had been a farewell.

"Should've let us stay planetside," Jack said, leaning forward so her elbows were planted on her knees. "Reckon a place like Nos Astra would turn interesting after dark. Plenty of idiots with too much money."

"You would think like that," Shepard responded, absently.

"Not my fault if some people are just easy targets."

"Hey," Shepard said mildly. "Isn't the shining example of my company convincing you to keep on the straight and narrow yet?"

"You wish, Shepard."

Shepard grinned and sank lower in her seat. Her left elbow ached, from where she'd hurled herself too fast into cover and clipped herself on the edge of a crate. She heard Jack say something else, and when her needling attention turned on Krios, and the assassin responded, sardonic and dry and unperturbed, Shepard found herself smiling.

"Shepard?" Lawson said, from where she sat poised in the cockpit.

"Yeah?"

"Something's up," Lawson said, tersely.

Shepard was down the causeway and leaning over the back of the co-pilot's seat heartbeats later. "What?"

"_Normandy_'s just floating out there, Commander. No response to my hails."

"Nothing?"

"I can't raise the CIC. Or Joker."

"Slow us down and take us alongside. The long way."

She moved, slipping into the empty seat. She stared out at the sleek lines of her ship, black and silver and still.

"Joker," Lawson repeated again, and again. "Joker, this is Lawson. Joker, are you reading me?" Her fingers flicked across the panel again, and she snapped, "_Normandy _CIC, Lawson. Anyone listening?"

Silence answered, and Shepard felt her shoulders tighten. _Something_ had happened. Something had turned her ship half-lightless and floating in the belly of the stars and it had happened _fast_.

"Shepard," Garrus said, from behind her. "I heard. Plan?"

"Go in slow and careful. You're coming with me, Krios as well." She swung herself out of the co-pilot's chair. "The rest of you can stay here until we get on board and figure out just what the hell's happening over there."

She unslung her rifle and waited, too aware of the way her stomach had knotted. She checked the trigger and the stock and tried uselessly to keep her thoughts from twisting.

_Her ship, _her_ ship, and she was _not_ going to lose it the second time round, not before she dug up just what the fuck had happened. _

She waited while the shuttle glided up alongside the airlock and settled. Another moment slipped past, and another, and she tightened her grip on her rifle. The inner doors hissed up and showed gloom and the lowlights that tracked down on either side of the main walkway. Four slow steps took Shepard through the archway and into the stifling quiet. She could see the brightness of the constellation charts, and the glow of vacant workstations and Joker's chair was empty and she was suddenly aware that the air _tasted_ different.

_Nothing was damaged_, she thought. She couldn't smell smoke or the tang of melted wiring or the acrid burn of heavy laserfire. She couldn't see spiderweb fractures in the screens or bullet holes pocking the walls or the hundred and other giveaways that would mean the CIC had recently seen combat.

She lifted her arm and snapped, "Joker? EDI? Talk to me?"

Her comm unit crackled, and eventually, Joker whispered, "Shepard? That you?"

"Who else?"

"That's really not funny."

Shepard exhaled slowly. "Okay. Start talking. Why's it dark up here?"

"Yeah," Joker answered, wavering and uneven. "I'm sorry, I. Look. EDI's down here with us scrubbing through our systems, and I didn't know how close you were, and, yeah."

"Joker," Shepard said, firmly. She needed him talking sense and talking sense quickly and she could hear the way his voice was too close to cracking. "Where are you?"

"Engineering. Near the drive core."

"Okay. We're on our way down."

"Shepard?"

"Yes?"

"It's, ah," Joker said. "It's really bad."

"It's okay," she answered, slightly wry. "I figured that part out on my own."

* * *

><p>Collectors, Shepard thought, could quite happily go and point their nifty ship into the heart of the nearest sun. <em>They'd slithered onto her ship and they'd taken her crew and they'd done it <em>knowing _she was offship. _

"You lost nearly everyone," Lawson said, coldly. "And damn near the lost the ship as well."

"Yeah, I know, alright? I was there," Joker snapped.

"It's done," Shepard said. "It's done and it's over and all we can do now is focus on getting them back."

"And the AI?" Lawson demanded. "You unshackled it without a thought for what that could mean."

"What were we meant to do?" Taylor said. "Virus in the ship and Collectors all over us. Or would you have preferred to come back to a completely empty ship?"

"That's not what I meant," Lawson said, as sharply.

"Then what _did_ you mean?" Tali demanded.

"There were _dozens_ of the bastards," Massani said.

"Get any of them?" Jack asked.

"Not enough."

Shepard grinned crookedly. "It's the thought that counts. EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"Is the ship clean?"

"Yes."

"Good," she said.

She stared down at the patch of floor between her boots and tried to swallow back the anger. She'd listened to them all, to what they'd said – how the _Normandy_ had gone dark, how the Collector ship had slewed up alongside, how the corridors had been full of them, buzzing and clawing and bundling the crew into pods, Chakwas and Chambers and Goldstein and Donnelly and already there were too many names. How Massani and Grunt had shadowed Joker down to the AI core and found the geth blocking the doorway with six dead Collectors. How Taylor had taken himself into the lab for Solus and down to engineering for Tali and by the time they'd surfaced, the ship had been stripped empty.

How EDI had marshaled them all in the drive core and vented the ship and blown as many as the bastards were still sniffing around out into air they couldn't breathe.

"Okay," Shepard said. "Get some rest and try and get settled. We'll talk about going through the relay after we've all had some time to wind down. Lawson?"

"Commander?"

"Work me up some shift rosters." She straightened up and tried to ignore the heavy press of the silence. "I guess we've all got a bit more to do now."

* * *

><p>Shepard lasted long enough in the shower to scrub off the sweat before she was back out in her cabin and yanking clean fatigues on over damp skin. She wrestled with her belt and her boots and then she was prowling back out into the elevator.<p>

She discovered the armoury deserted – _like most of the fucking ship, plucked clean and left empty and she should've _been here_ for it _– and busied herself running oil over the disassembled pieces of the first assault rifle she tugged off the rack. She was finishing up with the barrel when she heard his feet against the floor, measured and careful.

"Shepard," Garrus said, eventually, when the silence lingered too long, filled only with the clacking, metallic sound of the rifle clicking into place.

"I'm here."

"Yeah."

"My _crew_," she spat out, and shoved up to her feet. She could feel the ugly, twisting knot of the rage in her belly. "My fucking _crew_. Who the fuck do they think they are?"

Garrus said nothing.

"My crew," she said again, rough and tired. "They waited. Fucking waited until I was off the ship. What if they'd all been taken?"

"I don't know," he said.

"What if," she said, and suddenly the words spilled out, honest and raw. "What if you'd been here and you'd been taken?"

"Then," he said. "You'd be damn sure you'd be turning this ship right around and pointing it at the Omega-4 relay to come save my ass. No way I'm being prodded and studied by Collectors. However attractive I might be."

For a long moment she stared up and into his face. "Garrus," she said, and choked on a sudden, tearing laugh. "You're damn right I would."

He moved and she met him halfway and something inside her eased when his arms settled around her. She lifted her head so that she could feel the side of his mouth against her face, rough and uneven.

"I keep thinking," she said. "Something an old sergeant of mine said, years ago. We were bullshitting about what we thought it'd be like, having your own command. Reckon most of us thought it'd all be about getting someone else to do all the work and just marching around looking good in the best gear."

"Well," Garrus said, and she felt it as he smiled. "That is _part_ of it."

"And he just shut us all up when he said, you know, they hit you on your ship, something happens to _your_ ship, and they've hit you in your guts and in your heart."

"Smart sergeant," he said. "It's true."

"And then I think, there's no way in hell I'm letting the Collectors take my ship from me again, not even after this. Then I think that it's not even my ship, not really."

"Shepard," Garrus murmured. "You're thinking too much."

"Yeah," she said, almost laughing. "I know. It's a flaw."

"It's allowed."

"Thanks," she said. "I should go talk to Joker. Will you be up later?"

"Actually, I'll probably be passed out asleep," he responded, drily. "Though if you want I can go do that in your quarters."

"I think that," she said, and kissed the underside of his jaw, and the sharp angles of his chin. "Sounds like a great idea."

* * *

><p><em>The workstations alongside the walkway glowed, and Shepard slowed her pace enough to glance at most of them. The Cerberus operatives worked quickly and quietly, she noticed, and briefly she wondered where the Illusive Man had found them all. <em>

_Joker turned and smiled lopsidedly when she stepped up and into the cockpit proper. "Hey, Commander. Coffee?"_

_ He jerked his chin towards two steaming mugs in front of the navigation console, and she grinned. "You're a star."_

_ "Nah. I just bullied Chambers into getting them for me."_

_ "Smooth." She sipped at the coffee, and found it scalding and sweet and close to heavenly. "It's not quite the same, is it?"_

_ "The coffee? I'll reprimand Chambers, if you want."_

_ "The ship."_

_ "No," he said, softer. "I mean, I know the upgrades are good. Don't get me wrong. I want to be buried in this chair if at all possible."_

_ "I can arrange that."_

_ "I knew you cared." Joker smiled wearily. "Still, we're here. That's that, at least."_

_ "Yeah." She stared at the rim of the mug. "There's that. What's wrong?"_

_ "Who said anything's wrong?"_

_ "Your face does," she said. "You look like I just told you to go get the recommended amount of sleep under threat of court-martial." _

_ "Nothing wrong with my face," he protested. "This is just me." When she said nothing, he scowled, and said, "It's good to be back in the air, Commander, it's just…Shit. I'm sorry, Shepard." _

_ "Hey." She shook her head. The ship's name floated between them, and when he looked away from her, she understood. "Don't be. You held her together long enough to get nearly everyone out."_

_ "Yeah. Nearly everyone."_

_ "Joker." She balanced the cup on the console in front of her. "Let's look at it this way, this ship gets torn apart by the Collectors, I'll leave you to fry in your chair. Happy?"_

_ He winced. "No…not really, Commander." _

_ "Joker. I'm glad you're here. Alright?" _

_ "Alright."_

_ "Besides, who else have I got around here to share stories with about all the exciting shit we saw when we took down Saren?"_

_ "Oh, that exciting shit?" Joker grinned then, and it lit up his face. "You mean like when I had to fly the _Normandy_ over lava to come pick you up?"_

_ "Yeah. See? Don't you miss it already?" She suppressed a sudden, tired laugh. "And now you get to do it all over again."_

_ "Can't wait."_

_ "Hey, I can have you grounded, if you want."_

_ "Nah. I'll pass, thanks. Commander?"_

_ "Yeah?" _

_ "It's good to have you back." _

_ Shepard smiled. "Good."_

"Hey, Commander," Joker mumbled, and he swung the chair around slightly.

"Hey." She paused, almost hovering, and asked, "How are you holding up?"

"How do you think?"

"We did everything we could, Jeff," EDI said, and her blue sphere flickered and held above the console.

"Yeah, thanks, Mom," he said, but there was little venom in his voice.

He was tired – no, Shepard thought, he was fucking exhausted, and it was showing in his face and in the bruise-coloured shadows around his eyes – but she knew it would be damn useless to order him out of his chair and off to sleep.

"We didn't know," Shepard said, gently. "We couldn't know. We needed to use the IFF and this came with it. Just a big old-fashioned trap."

"Yeah, it's always the little extras in life that bite."

"You going to be okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be okay. When it's all over and, you know. When we get everyone back."

"Yes," Shepard said. "I do know."


	21. Muster

_A huge thank-you to everyone who is supporting and following this story - your support means so much. As always, Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty-One: Muster**_

Garrus stirred and blearily, he realised that his arm was pinioned under Shepard's warm, entirely bare and far too rigid body. He shifted slightly, and she rolled towards him, her head curving against his shoulder.

"Hey," he said, his voice all blurred with fatigue. "You okay?"

"Yeah."

"You sleep at all?"

"Yeah, some."

She'd crawled under the sheets hours ago, he recalled. He remembered surfacing from odd, unsettling dreams and finding her burrowed against his chest, her breathing a little too rapid.

"Hey," he said again, gently. He touched the side of her face, and the disheveled mess of her hair. "You in there?"

"Yeah. Sorry. Thinking."

"Yeah?"

"I want the armoury stocked. Everything we could possibly need and more." She grinned, finally, and added, "This is not going to be one of those assignments where you need just _one_ more grenade. You know the worst part?"

"We won't even know what we have to do before we get through the relay."

"Yeah," she said, and grimaced. "Collector homeworld. Whatever the hell that even means."

"You're thinking soon?"

"I'm thinking soon. As soon as we can be ready." She was looking at him, curiously and level and unwavering. "You with me?"

"You know I am," he said.

"Good. Because someone's going to have to soak up stray fire while I do something courageous."

"You're so sweet."

"I try."

"Sure you do," Garrus said, and turned his face into the questing pressure of her hands.

She brushed his markings, and then his scars, and the quickening thump of his pulse beneath his jaw. Silently, he mirrored her, mapping the angles of her face and the span of her collarbone. Her skin yielded under his hands, and when he gathered her closer, she arched up against him. As wordlessly, she coaxed him on top of her, her legs hooking delightfully around his waist.

She was melting under him, he thought, slick and hot and wanting and suddenly he knew he wanted to last her out.

Somehow he levered himself up slightly, and – awkwardly and clumsily and almost unsteadily – he laid his hand against the slope of her hip. She gasped out a laugh and covered his hand with hers, guiding him. He felt it when she came, clenching hard around him. Her hands were at the back of his head, holding him there, holding him so that he was breathing her in, skin and heat and the scent of both of them together.

He said something, maybe her name, and then he was following her into his own climax, his whole body seizing with the sudden, aching pleasure of it.

"Mmm," he mumbled, half against her shoulder. "Yeah. I kind of planned that to last longer."

Shepard's fingers slid beneath his fringe again, stroking. "Morning sex," she said, thoughtfully. "I'm pretty sure it never lasts quite as long as you think it's going to."

"Wise words," he said, and slowly, he worked himself back up to his elbows and off her.

She let him flop onto his side before she was nestled up against him, close enough that he could've counted her eyelashes. She was looking at him again, and he knew it was because of the relay and because of the Collectors and because of the strange yearning softness that he could see in her face.

Because she was going to have walk out of the door and sit down in the briefing room and plan for whatever was on the other side of the relay and he'd have to help and they'd have to get the ship ready.

_Collectors and Cerberus and Reapers and suddenly, terribly, he wanted nothing more than to lock the door and stay like this. _

"Shepard," he said, and stopped.

"I know," she said. She smiled then, and added, "You can just tell me we'll be fine. That's usually the line to use."

"Better than fine. There may even be explosions."

"Sounds like my kind of day."

She pressed her mouth to his, awkwardly and carefully, until he could taste her, dampness and heat and something that was _her_.

"So," Shepard said, and grinned properly. "You want first in the main battery?"

"I'm overwhelmed."

"I thought you liked that cannon."

"I do," Garrus said drily. "You'll be wanting everyone geared up for this?"

"Yeah. We're run low enough on numbers as it is and I want us ready to make that jump." She touched the back of his hand, and then she was pushing herself up and off the bed. "You're staring," she said, and _– deliberately, he was sure, deliberately and teasingly_ – she leaned forward so she could press her lips against his markings.

"And you're standing there," he retorted.

He scrambled upright and caught her against him, lifting her until she braced her hands flat against his shoulders. Shepard laughed, and when he eventually let her feet touch the floor, she tugged his head down.

"Catch up later?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered. "I'm sure I can think of a reason or two."

* * *

><p>Hours, Shepard thought, were sly creatures in the way they ticked away. She'd given them twelve hours – <em>twelve hours that were too much and not nearly enough<em> – to have personal gear readied and shipboard responsibilities tidied up. She'd ordered Massani down to engineering to help Tali, and sent Jack into the armoury to ease up Taylor's workload. She'd worked herself through a round in the gym on her own, slamming her fists into one of the hanging bags until she'd loosened the tension in her shoulders.

You did it, she thought, you did it because you had to and because somewhere along the line, you'd signed up for it.

"Shepard?"

"EDI," she responded. "How's it going down in engineering?"

"We are within schedule, Shepard."

"Good to know. How's Joker?"

"Jeff is resting," EDI answered, and her voice softened ever so slightly.

"Good," Shepard said, and found herself smiling. "How much bullying did you have to engage in?"

"Commander?" EDI asked, innocuously.

"Never mind."

"Commander."

Left alone, Shepard took herself down to the hangar deck. She knew damn well she'd do it again, but still, she walked the perimeter of the deck, studying the edges and the rising curves of the walls, feeling the thrum of the ship as it moved beneath her feet. She checked the corners of the shuttle, and the sharp angles of the Hammerhead, and the crates on the other side, strapped down and trapped in place.

She made her way back up again, and stopped off in engineering, and at the starboard observation room above that, and distracted herself by ensuring that the books there were stowed on their shelves and the lockers were closed properly.

_The rooms were too empty_, she thought. Too fucking empty because she'd needed the IFF and it had led the Collectors straight to her ship and they'd done to the _Normandy_ what they'd done to Horizon and Ferris Fields and God knew how many other colonies.

She stopped, and made herself pause long enough to touch the thick clear observation window. She dragged her fingertips against it and knew that she had to settle herself. Her thoughts were all in an ugly whirl, anger and the Collectors and she wanted the ship through the fucking relay but they weren't even touching up on the Omega Nebula yet and she _knew_ that.

She stared at the stars, bright points against the rippling blackness. She would rest, she knew, eventually, after she thought herself through it.

After she walked the silences of her ship again.

"_Hey, Skipper," Ashley said, over her shoulder. "Isn't this your downtime?"_

_ "Yeah," Shepard answered, and sat on the opposite side of the workbench. "It is."_

_ "That thing where when you've got time to slouch around, you can't?"_

_ "That's very concisely put, Ash." _

_ "Sure it is," Ashley retorted. Her hands flickered over the broken-apart pieces of the rifle in front of her. "Virmire, yeah?"_

_ "Yeah. It's come up just when we need it. It's making me wonder what the hell we'll find down there."_

_ "Things to shoot."_

_ "Be a lost cause if it turns out otherwise." Shepard scooped up a square of cloth and a can of oil. "I keep telling myself the Council are only doing what they can."_

_ "As politicians."_

_ "Yeah. That's the point. They're not out here." _

_ "Yeah," Ashley said, her gaze trained on the scope in her hands. "But if they were, we wouldn't be, and we'd be out of our jobs."_

_ Shepard laughed. "True enough, Chief." _

* * *

><p>Garrus leaned over the keyboard and tried to ignore the dull ache in the base of his spine. He'd been at the algorithms for too long already, and he was half-convinced he'd never be able to kick the power draw up again.<p>

"Okay, EDI," he said. "How's that look?"

"Better, Garrus."

"How much better?"

"Two percent better than the last time you asked."

"Yeah. Great." He straightened up, aware of how the muscles in his shoulders were complaining. "Okay. Cool it down until I get back down here."

"Yes, Garrus."

He nodded to the empty air – _completely absurd_, he knew_, but he still did it whether EDI's blue sphere was there or not_ – and tapped the shut-off command into the main keyboard.

Shepard had appeared in the main battery hours ago, before she'd darted off to the medlab. She'd stopped long enough to bury herself against his chest, her wiry, muscled frame stiff against him before she relaxed. She'd smiled at him, afterwards, when she'd lifted her head and looked at him, and all he could uselessly think about was how well she fit between his arms.

Garrus pushed himself away from the console and made his way back down the main walkway and into the mess hall. He found it _almost_ busy, as it had been when they'd all sat down to breakfast, none of them talking too loud in case they stirred the silence too much.

He picked out a tray and food and halfway back to the table, he bumped into Tali.

"Hey," Garrus said. "Coming up for air?"

"Yes," she answered. "Zaeed's been dragging things around for me down by the drive core, and I think we're almost tidied up."

"Good."

"I hope so," Tali said, and trailed him to the table. She sat opposite him, and for a long moment, she did not look up. "Ship's too quiet."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and searched for something else to say. "It is."

He ate slowly, and part of him was aware of Jack deliberately interrupting Solus when he launched into a cascade of words about Collector tech and seeker swarms and Garrus remembered the way the little bastards had buzzed and fluttered on Horizon. Clouds of them, he recalled, dark swirls around the frozen colonists, and then the Collectors had dropped out of the sky, and one of them had said Shepard's _name _and he'd seen her shoulders stiffen, just slightly.

_"Well." Shepard crouched beside the fallen Collector. Carefully, she pushed it onto its back with the tip of her rifle. "Guess I'm on somebody's shit list." _

_ "Yeah." Garrus stared at it, at the way its head was wide and tapered to a jutting chin. Eyes half-hidden between the thick folds of its face, and clawed fingers slack around the stock of its weapon and the wings still iridescent and sparkling. "Great way to make friends."_

_ "Nice," she said drily. She straightened up, her gaze still on the Collector. "Okay. Let's move. I'm not convinced that was our only welcoming committee." _

_ "I hear that." _

_ She'd been right – of course she'd been right, and he'd been thinking the same damn thing – and after they worked their way through the vacant cabins and over the wind-raked grass, the Collectors were there. Relentless and swarming across the white-floored courtyard, and Garrus settled his rifle against his shoulder and fired. Two shots cleared Shepard some space, and another three carved a path through the Collectors on her other side. _

_ He sighted again, and the scope filled with another Collector's head, its eyes fierce and yellow. Its mouth moved, and when it said Shepard's name again in the _same damn voice_, all rough and crackling, Garrus wondered just what the hell they'd found themselves up against this time. _

Lawson said something sharply, and Jack sniped back, and Garrus growled out, "Does it even matter?"

"What's your point?" Jack snapped.

"Mordin's anti-swarm tech holds up or it doesn't. We're still going in."

"Sure you are," Jack muttered. "Make sure you enjoy it."

Garrus swallowed back his instinctive, vicious response and glared at the table instead.

"What?" Jack said, and grinned. "That's it?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered. "You're not giving me nearly enough to bother entertaining you with a slanging match. Not when we both know that I'll be saving your ass from a whole bunch of Collectors tomorrow."

Jack laughed. "Wrong way round, turian."

"We'll see."

He finished up the meal, and heartbeats later he wasn't even sure what he'd just eaten. Afterwards, he persisted through another hour in the main battery, and when EDI informed him of Shepard's briefing request, he was almost relieved. He discovered Taylor already there, with Lawson, and Krios sitting on the other side of the table. He nodded to them and sat, and the silence rose up and swallowed him. The others trailed in, as tersely quiet, and Garrus breathed in slowly.

He could feel it, the sharp impatience that had its hooks in his stomach.

The doors opened again, and Shepard strode in. She rested her hands on the table and slowly, she looked at them. The weight of her gaze met Garrus', and when she smiled slightly, something inside him eased.

Shepard rested her hands on the table. "We don't know what we're up against," she said, and her voice carried into the stillness, fierce and measured. "That changes nothing. I know it's a tough place to be stuck in. We don't know whether we'll be going in groundside or ship to ship. That's something we can't know and there's not a damn thing we can do about it yet. The relay," she said, and paused. "That's as far as we can think properly."

"Orders, then?" Lawson asked.

Shepard nodded. As evenly, she said, "Tali, you'll be in engineering. Eyes on the drive core all the way and sing out at the first suggestion that something's up."

"Of course, Shepard."

"Mordin, you'll be living in the medlab unless I say otherwise. Everyone else, we're on standby duty. We cross through into Collector space and anything so much as waves its claws at the airlock of my ship, then we persuade it otherwise." Lopsidedly, she grinned and added, "Expect updates once we're through the relay. Questions?"

"Yeah," Joker said, his voice slightly hazy over the comm channel. "We get through and find something we don't like, can we turn around?"

"Sure we can," Shepard responded. "After we save the galaxy."

"High standards," Joker said. "Guess they're not gone after all."

"Nice input." Shepard straightened up. "We should be inside the Omega Nebula around four hours before the day cycle starts. Oversleep on me and I will not be pleased. Other questions?"

* * *

><p>Shepard sat on the edge of her bed and ignored the clock. She leaned down and unbuckled her boots, and by the time she had them lazily kicked off, she heard footsteps on the other side of the door, deliberately loud.<p>

"Hey," Garrus said, quietly. "Want some company?"

"It's not locked," she answered. "And you always have the best ideas."

The door swished open, and he stopped, half over the threshold. "Of course I do."

He was hesitating, she saw, hovering and not quite certain, so she stood and caught his hands. "You're an idiot," she said gently. "You really thought I'd want to be alone?"

"It's tough, the lead-up to a big op," he said, and shrugged. "I didn't know. We've never done this before. Like this. Together, I mean."

"Yeah," she said. She cupped the back of his hands and turned them over so she could run her thumbs across his palms. "I know what you mean. And I probably could've been clearer."

"You're only human."

"You're so funny," she retorted. She lifted one of his hands and kissed his fingers in turn. "Wouldn't want you anywhere else."

"Shepard."

"I know, that was a terrible line."

"No, I meant," he said, and stepped closer, close enough that she could feel him breathing. "This feels good."

"Yes." She leaned up slightly, flattening her hands against his chest. "It does."

"So. Planned briefing or improvised?"

"A bit of both. I did remember to cut out that bit about maybe dying in a huge fireball on the way through the relay, though."

"Charming," he said mildly. "You talked to the Illusive Man?"

"Yeah," she answered, and grimaced. "He was enthused."

"You're joking."

"Only a little." She traced her fingers along the corded lines of his shoulders. "_I've never seen a better leader. _Sanctimonious bastard. Never seen a better resurrected shit-kicker with strings attached, more like."

Garrus laughed. "Nice."

"Definitely one contract I'm looking forward to shelving."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and she could hear the roughness in his voice. "We'll get to that."

"We'd better," she said. "You want to sit down?"

"Now that you mention it," he answered, drily. "Or we could just stand here all night."

"Very funny."

She found one of his hands and drew him across to the bed. Wordlessly, he sat with his shoulders against the wall and his legs parted enough that she could curl herself between them, her head resting against the side of his chest.

"You know," Garrus said. His hand smoothed over the back of her head, his fingers dipping into her hair. "I should've brought something to drink."

Shepard laughed. "Yeah, because that always ends so well before a big mission."

"Is that the voice of experience talking?"

"Maybe."

"It was the celebrations afterwards that always killed me."

"I'll hold you to that," she said.

"You're buying."

"Your chivalry overwhelms me."

"Of course it does," he said, and stroked his thumb down the slant of her cheek.

She traced her hand across his chest and down to his waist. "Too many clothes."

"That sounded like an order."

"Only if you decline."

Garrus chuckled. "I'm convinced."

She rolled up onto her knees and slightly awkwardly, she wrestled with buckles and clasps and he lifted his hips so she could tug his pants down. She squirmed down to the end of the bed and yanked his boots off along with them.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking at your feet." She grasped his ankle and felt him shiver. Firmly, she braced his foot between her hands and regarded it. "Your skin is so rough here."

"Yeah?"

She tapped his claws, and when she rubbed her fingers between his toes, he groaned.

"Stop? Please?"

"You can't possibly be ticklish here. Your skin's too tough."

"I'm not. It just feels weird."

"Well, it _looks_ weird."

"No, it doesn't," he retorted, and she heard the amused, sliding note in his voice.

She laughed. She worked her way back up his legs, lingering over the spurs at the back of his calves and finishing at the jutting shape of his hips. Hooking her fingers under his tunic, she drew it up and over his shoulders and silently, she looked at him.

"Hey," he said, very gently. "I'm not going anywhere."

Shepard smiled, almost tremulously. "You'd better not. I have plans."

He sat up slightly, and then his hands were on her, deft and finding buttons and buckles and pulling her fatigues off. Not hurrying, he guided her back down on top of him, and his hands settled at the small of her back. "Plans, huh?"

"You know," Shepard said, her lips moving against a rough patch of skin near his sternum. "We touch that relay and every Alliance ship with its nose pointed our way is going to notice."

"Yeah. That one lurched into my thoughts today as well."

"Great minds." Her fingers followed her mouth and she felt him shudder beneath her. "Yet another thing on my _don't know what the hell to do_ list."

"Just wait," he said. "Nothing else we can do."

"I know. And yeah, there are a thousand and one other things that should be occupying my mind."

"I get it, I do. It's tough, walking away from something you know. Or not being able to walk back into it."

"Yeah." She shifted slightly, so that her weight sank across his hips. "You regret it at all?"

"There's plenty that I regret. At C-Sec and on Omega." His hands cupped over the back of her thighs, holding her against him. "There's plenty I don't regret."

"I know what you mean." She straightened up, her hands sliding across his chest.

"So," Garrus said, and his voice roughened. "You had plans?"

"Nothing fancy," Shepard answered. Whatever else she wanted to say died in her throat. She kissed the soft place beneath his jaw, and the rapid thud of his pulse. "I just want you to stay."

* * *

><p>The red glow of the Omega-4 relay filled the cockpit screens. Shepard gazed at it, at the way it simmered and seethed, and silently decided that the damn thing was ugly.<p>

"Well," Shepard said. "That's a nice sight to wake up to."

"You should've been here half an hour ago," Joker responded. He swung around in his seat and added, "It was like it was redefining ominous."

"Thanks for that."

"You're welcome, Commander."

The Collectors ducked in and out through the relay, she thought. They'd been darting back and forth and she _had_ to believe the IFF would see the _Normandy_ through intact.

She'd walked the corridors of the ship again. She'd checked in with them all, and she'd buried the prickling impatience. She was geared up and her armour was oiled and cleaned and her weapon harness was sitting where it should, heavy and familiar across her shoulders.

"EDI," she said. "How are we looking?"

The blue sphere near Joker's main console flickered in answer. "All systems online."

"Thanks, EDI."

"Hey," Garrus said, his footsteps measured against the walkway behind. "We there yet?"

"Not quite," Shepard answered, and grinned. "You want the best seats, huh?"

"Wouldn't miss it, you know that."

"Joker," she said. "Give us some speed."

Joker nodded, and she felt it, the thrumming surge in the ship beneath her feet. She leaned over the back of his chair and watched as he tapped out another command. She squeezed his shoulder, and said, "You okay?"

"Be better if you weren't trying to break my collarbone."

"Yeah, yeah," she said, and let him go. "Keep whining."

"You got seconds, Shepard," Joker said, and his hands flew across the console again.

"Okay." She straightened up, and her shoulder brushed against the side of Garrus' arm. She flicked her comm unit on and looked at the crackling scarlet maw of the relay. "This is it," she said, and did not look away from it. "Hold on to something and I'll see you all on the other side."


	22. Threshold

_A huge thank-you to everyone who is following this story, or has it on alerts or favourites. Thank you all so much. Bioware owns nearly everything, and as always, reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Twenty-Two - Threshold**_

Luck, Shepard thought, could be a fickle bitch. Especially now that she had a hole punched through one side of her ship, and cracks on the other side, and not too fucking long before the Collectors started wondering just who had crashed into the side of their nest.

She leaned onto the console and gazed at the rising uneven spars of the Collectors' base. _Hanging onto the edge of a black hole_, she thought. Close enough to the core that she could see the spreading darkness of it, ringed by jagged fragments that had been God knew how many ships.

"Well," she said, and leaned onto the back of Joker's chair. "That was a hell of a ride. You okay?"

"Think I broke a rib," Joker retorted. "Or all of them. What happened to the inquisitive bastard in the cargo hold?"

"It's in pieces."

"Good."

"Yeah." She let herself stare at the uneven yellow towers of the base for another heartbeat. "Start combing through the systems and get her back online. You want me to leave you some help?"

"While you go in and tackle the bad guys?" Joker smiled tightly. "We'll manage. I figure we can seal off the hold and go from there."

"Okay. You know something?"

"What?"

"That," she said, and clipped his shoulder gently. "Was some nice flying."

Joker grinned. "Course it was."

She turned, her thoughts already swarming and full of how the hell they were going to work their way inside the base. A small squad called for infiltration – however long that might last until the whole damn base knew they'd slithered in – and she knew they'd have to work brisk and silent and fast as they dared.

"EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"Can you pull up any scans of the base, anything that might help us?"

"I am already working on it."

"Thanks."

Another stride took her into the CIC, and she eyed the high smooth arches of the walls, and the empty workstations, and the impatient silence. Joker had danced the ship through the relay, and coaxed her on through the chaos of the debris field and he'd held her together long enough and well enough that they'd sent the Collectors' ship spiraling out of the sky.

Which meant, Shepard thought wryly, all _she_ had to do was get them in and then out and away before anything else took a shot at her ship.

"Tali, you hear me?"

"I read you, Shepard."

"How's the drive core looking?"

"It took a beating," Tali answered, slightly breathless. "It's holding. Some cooldown time will ease it."

"How much?"

"Until it cools down," Tali said pointedly.

Shepard snorted. "Fair enough. Pry yourself off it and come and meet us in the briefing room."

"Be there as soon as I can."

She made her way down the steps and into the briefing room and found most of them already there, poised and terse and she understood. It was the needling knowledge that _this_ was what they'd waited for, and suddenly and terribly it didn't really matter that a firefight was just a firefight, not if your thoughts were all tangled up in how _this_ one mattered.

"So," Jack said, her fingers splayed hard against the table. "We boarded by Collectors yet?"

"Not yet," Shepard answered. "Nor is the ship on fire."

"Great," Jack muttered. "I feel so much safer."

Shepard hid her smile and looked up in time to see Garrus regarding her, his blue eyes fierce and level and she wondered what he was thinking.

He'd be thinking the same as her, she thought. He'd be thinking it had taken far too long and not nearly long enough to get to this point, and all they were sitting on was a plan to get themselves out of the ship and doing something.

"Okay," she said, when Tali trailed in, followed by Legion and Taylor. She waited while they sat, her gaze wandering and fixing on her gloved hands. She raised her head, and said, "I know we didn't exactly plan this mission to be like this, but this is where we're at."

"God almighty," Massani remarked, half-smiling. "There was a plan all along? Why wasn't I told?"

"Nice." Shepard grinned. "EDI's been digging up some scans of the base. We need to talk through just how we're going to get ourselves inside."

* * *

><p>Garrus checked the grip on his rifle again, and then the scope, and the magazine port, and by the time he'd finished, he was aware of Taylor and Grunt brushing past him on their way to the airlock.<p>

_Tali working her way through the thermal vents and Shepard following her and him running around as bait with his part of the squad. _

He'd almost – _for one terrible, wrenching moment – _wondered why the hell she had even _thought_ to trust him with this, with five lives on top of his own.

"Garrus," Shepard said, from somewhere behind him. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He turned and found her smiling at him, lopsidedly. "You sure about this?"

"Yes," she said, quietly. "I really am."

"Okay," he said, almost sighing out the word. "I can do that."

"You'd better. Garrus?"

"Yeah," he answered. "Me too."

"Bullshit," she said, and sounded mildly affronted. "You have no idea what I was going to say."

"Something about me definitely being the better shot."

"You wish. It was the other thing I was going to say."

"The other thing?"

"Yeah." She looked up into his face, her dark eyes fixing on his. "The thing about coming back."

"Yeah," Garrus echoed. "You're probably right. That one's important too." He pulled her against him, awkward and roughly and close enough that he could lean his forehead against hers. "So," he said, unevenly. "I'll be seeing you on the other side?"

"Damn right you'll see me," she retorted, and he heard a hitch in her breathing that sounded like half a laugh. "You don't get to celebrate all on your own."

"I'll remember that."

He let her go, and as she turned away from him, he felt the sudden, welcome pressure of her hand, catching against the back of his wrist and gripping hard. He followed her, closing the distance to the airlock and out into the dull yellow light that was wrapped around the Collector base.

"Nice," Jack said, from where she was perched on a jutting spar. "Thought you were going to be in there all day."

"And miss this?" Shepard grinned, all teeth. "We've all got our assignments. Let's move out and make this work."

Garrus unslung his rifle. Its weight settled against his shoulder, and the terrible knot in his gut eased slightly. "Massani," he said. "With me and Grunt, up front. Taylor, Krios. Jack. Stay behind us. Biotic support and try not to hit us."

"Screw you," Jack muttered, with little venom in her voice.

"No time for that," Garrus retorted. "Shepard?"

"As soon as we get ahead of you," Shepard said. "Make your shots count and I'll see you when we get through."

"Copy that." He waited, his eyes on her as she nodded to her half of the squad, as she jumped down to the broad outcropping beneath, as the rise of the yellow rock swallowed her. "Okay. Fireteam-2, following me and keeping an eye out for anything that isn't us. Let's go."

He swung himself over the edge, his feet jarring hard against the ground. Pale and yellow and bruise-coloured and it looked like the same _whatever it was_ that had made up most of the Collectors' ship. He motioned the others on faster until they cleared the uneven, sloping ground. An archway yawned ahead, high and empty. Another six strides took him into the gloom and the same humid, heavy scent that had been thick through the Collectors' ship assailed him.

Thick and seeping and he could see that the curving, vast walls above were gleaming.

"God, Vakarian," Jack muttered. "This is just lovely."

"You know it. Anyone reading anything?"

"My omni-tool says all clear," Massani answered.

Under his feet, the floor slanted upward, rising up into the damp darkness. He tried to see the details of the walls, the dips and ridges that rose and fell amid the glistening wetness.

"Okay, quicker," Garrus said, quietly. "Any ground we cover easy is something we should enjoy."

The floor was uneven, he noticed. Uneven and slick and each step felt far too tenuous. His omni-tool flared and he stopped. The gritty haze of the shadows shifted, _ever so slightly_, and his finger curled against the trigger. He could hear the rasp of his own breathing, and beneath it, that strange soft chittering sound. He followed it, and saw the serpentine movement as a Collector emerged between two low ridges.

"Contact," he snapped, and whipcrack fast, he checked his scope and fired. The shot knocked the Collector back, half its head torn away, and he knew that was only the start of it.

The base was a maze, and there'd be more of them, and already his omni-tool was flashing out proximity warnings again.

"Jack," he said. "Light them up."

He heard her laugh and then felt it as a shuddering blue wave of energy crackled past him, seething between the ridges. Three more Collectors edged into the corridor, and briefly, absurdly, he wondered where the hell they'd been hiding themselves. Unperturbed, Massani mowed two of them down, and Garrus sent the third staggering with a shot to the jaw.

"Shit," Jack muttered. "Where they coming from?"

"The walls," Taylor answered tersely.

"On me and moving up," Garrus said, never once looking away from his scope. "Do not let them get between us."

More of them spilled down and onto the floor, and after he shot and aimed and shot again, he decided to stop counting them. Krios hurled one of them sideways, its jagged, heavy body enveloped in blue energy. Viciously fast, Grunt fired into an onrushing group of them, each shot carving into them.

"Hey, Garrus." Shepard's voice crackled through his comm unit, distorted by distance. "You making friends over there?"

"Too many," he responded. He lined up another shot over Grunt's shoulder, fired, and was up and moving again before the Collector sagged to the floor. "Progress?"

"Good but slow," she answered. "We've got gates in the vents tripping Tali up and about a thousand bad guys looking at us."

"Only a thousand?" A rippling surge of biotic energy spun two Collectors off their feet, and Garrus turned to follow them. Two fast, smooth shots left them unmoving. "You're disappointing me."

"Sure I am. Update soon. Shepard out."

Yellow laserfire seared overhead, and Garrus jerked back against the wall. Livid and too bright and the same weapons they'd had on their own ship and on Horizon, heavy and ponderous and fucking brutal. Furiously, he lunged back out into the open and fired again, sending a Collector sprawling.

"They're moving fast," Taylor snapped. "They're going to swamp us."

"Massani, grenades," Garrus ordered.

"Right away."

He heard the whine as the grenade arced, and the satisfying roar of the explosion. "Jack, keep that space clear."

She complied, and the heaving rush of energy crackled and sparked. Four more Collectors thudded hard against the walls, their hands relaxing on their weapons. Garrus straightened and motioned the others on, and they cleared the rise of the slope and thirty feet into the high arches of the next chamber.

He scanned the area, and saw the same rippling indentations, some of them rising out of the gleaming floor, the rest of them pockmarking the curves of the walls. Further ahead and off to one side, he saw closed doors and the opening nearby that had to be his side of the vent.

"Shepard, Garrus," he said, half-crouched behind the swell of another ridge. "We're getting through on schedule. I can see the vent."

"Good," she answered, sounding slightly harried. "Company?"

"I'm sure we won't be alone long. Any sign of the talkative bastard?'

"Yeah. He's still calling himself Harbinger and I'm looking right at him. Well, bits of him."

Garrus grinned. "I give him five minutes before his replacement shows up."

"Two."

"You're on, Shepard."

"Vakarian," Massani said. "We got movement."

"I read it." He leaned up and saw the Collectors as they swarmed the chamber. Viciously fast, they plunged out of the air and filled up the space between the ridges, their wings flickering. Garrus fired in unbroken succession, his finger closing and releasing on the trigger in a steady, savage rhythm. Another burst of yellow laserfire cut the air above his head and he ducked almost prone. "Jack, clear the vent for me."

"Too fucking many, turian," she snarled back at him.

"Do the best you can." He risked another look and saw that the ground was thick with them as they surged forward. _How many_, he thought. _How many could the base hold? _

Another grenade arced up and overhead, and he followed it up with one of his own, knocking a half dozen of them backwards. Close to desperate, he gauged the distance to the vent, thought about it for half a heartbeat, and hurled himself over the ridge.

Two shots whined over his shoulders, and one of Taylor's sent a Collector crumpling against the ground. Blue energy flooded past him, slamming up against the doors and thundering hard through another four Collectors who'd been stupid enough to position themselves there.

"Garrus," came Tali's voice, thin and harried. "You hear me?"

"I got you, Tali. Where are you?"

"Just above you."

"Stay put and I'll clear you some room."

He bolted between another two ridges and waited, his shoulders stiff with tension. The damn vent was _inches_ away and he had another wave of Collectors seething up from their side of the chamber and his half of the squad pinned under another livid volley of fire. He unhooked another grenade and flung it. The thudding report made his teeth rattle and then he was up and lunging forward. He slammed shoulder-first into a Collector, sending it sprawling. He smacked the butt of his rifle into its throat, and Massani's follow-up shot emptied its skull. As fast, he whirled and rammed an elbow against another Collector's shoulder. When it faltered, half-stumbling, he threw himself back, gaining distance, and his shot took its head off.

Something rigid and sharp crashed into him, and he staggered, the impact driving the breath from his chest. He was aware of Taylor shouting, somewhere behind him, and the crackling surge of biotic energy. He spun and found himself staring up and into a Collector's fierce yellow eyes. Garrus cracked his rifle across its head, and another punch leveled it.

He dropped beneath the clatter of gunfire, his shoulders pressing tight against the wall. Ferocious and implacable, another swell of blue energy roiled over his head. He waited, counting the slow creep of the seconds until the silence returned.

"I'm reading nothing," he said, and heard the rough, exhilarated burr in his own voice. "Anyone?"

"Nothing," Taylor said. "Knocked them all back."

"Nicely done." Garrus straightened up and ran a severe glance over his rifle. "Tali, get down here and we'll see if we can get this door open."

* * *

><p>Shepard glared down at her boots and tried not to think about the rows and rows of gleaming pods.<p>

The gleaming pods they'd yanked the crew out of, most of them still breathing, all of them gaunt and grey in the face and utterly fucking shaken even after their feet hit the ground again. The glass or crystal or whatever the hell it had been had fractured only after a struggle, the pieces peeling apart, jagged and sticky.

_Processed_, Chakwas had said, processed and turned into liquid and channeled up through the heavy black tubes Shepard could see overhead and she tried not to wonder _why_.

She'd commanded them back to the ship, briskly and almost mercilessly, with Tali and Massani and Mordin flanking them. A slow slog through another arching set of corridors had taken them far too close to the buzzing chaos of the seeker swarms, and Samara's glowing blue sphere had come too fucking near to buckling before they were through and out the other side.

"Hey." Garrus crouched beside her, his armour scuffed and filthy.

"I know," she answered, and lifted her head enough that she could look up and into his face. "EDI reckons those nice pretty platforms can take us right where we want to go."

"Then that's our way up."

"Yes, it is. You ready?"

"When aren't I?"

Shepard laughed. "I'm convinced."

She shoved upright and breathed out slowly. They were all looking at her, her squad, all of them bruised and bleeding and wrung through and they _had_ to know they weren't quite in the clear yet.

"We've done well," she said, and her voice carried into the terse, saw-edged quiet. "We've carved our way through them and I'm proud to say that we got nearly everyone out of those fucking pods."

"And next?" Lawson asked.

"Next we take the express elevator all the way to the top and find out what they're cooking up in there." Almost absently, she ran one hand down the barrel of her rifle, over a new gouge. "Vakarian, Taylor. Grunt, Krios. You're with me. The rest of you, you get to stay down here. Hold your ground. We'll keep you updated."

"Nice, Shepard," Jack said, and smirked. "You'll let us know when we can run like hell, yeah?"

"Course I will. And if we come back down with something very big chasing us, I may even remember to let you know."

"I'm touched." Jack's grin wavered slightly. "Hey, Shepard. Take care up there."

"We will." She hauled herself up onto the platform. The impatience was knotting somewhere in her guts, the bristling, eager knowledge that _something_ waited up there, something that might hand her some answers.

_Missing colonists and Collectors working for Reapers and humans targeted. _

"Okay, EDI. How're we looking?"

"Clear, Shepard."

"Okay. Let's remember there's nothing to hold onto on these things and try not to fall off."

Under her feet, the platform thrummed and shuddered as it lifted into the air. Smoothly, it curved its way up and through the narrow, looming arches of the roof. The air was heavy and humid as she breathed in slowly. She was aware of Garrus' solid, wordless presence at her shoulder, and she found herself smiling slightly.

"Shepard," EDI said. "I am reading something."

"Something?"

"All the tubes above you are leading to this point in the station," EDI explained, and her voice sounded slightly strained. "These are preliminary readings only, Shepard. The structure's signatures are consistent but not particularly strong."

"What is it? Reactor? Energy source?"

The platform rose up, and Shepard looked upwards until she could see the dip and curve of the tubes. Somewhere over her head, they fanned out, thick and dark and sagging with the weight of whatever awful mush was inside them. She followed them, tracking them until they dropped lower and plunged into a huge, spread-eagled form.

_Hanging in the yellow haze and it was the shape of a person but it wasn't really and it was far too fucking big and it was all gleaming slate-grey and her stomach clenched._

Arms and hands that were clawed and it was floating in the emptiness, its vast head tipped forward and both eyes half shut.

"Oh, shit," Garrus murmured. "You seeing this?"

"Yeah." Shepard swallowed hard and uselessly, she said, "Well. That's very fucking big."

"Shepard," EDI said. "If my analysis is correct, then this is a Reaper."

"Yeah. Of course it is." Shepard bit back a sudden, hollow laugh. She could not tear her gaze from it, from the way it hung in the silence, huge and grey and waiting. "Thanks for that, EDI."

"A human Reaper," Krios said, and Shepard thought that he sounded far too unruffled. "Not fully constructed."

"Yeah, must be why it's not trying to eat us right now." She felt the jolt as the platform settled, lining itself up against others that stood in the shadows below the Reaper. "God. Do they _really_ think we look like that?"

Garrus snorted. "Not the best likeness?"

"Very funny." She stared up at it, at the gleaming pewter curves of its head, at the slack way the metal jaw lolled half-open. "EDI, I'm assuming we can shoot out its…those tubes that are holding it up. Sticking into it."

"The injection tubes, Shepard. Yes. I believe you are correct."

_How many people_, she thought. _How many had been processed and pumped into this thing's metal veins and how many more did it need before it started moving? _

"Okay. I'm reading company, coming up behind us." She eased her hand down to her trigger. "Taylor, use that nice rocket launcher you're hauling around. I want that thing in pieces on the ground. We'll cover you."

"Got it, Commander."

She nodded, and turned in time to see more of those damn platforms, gliding up and out of the haze and swarming with Collectors. She crouched, half-hidden behind the spar that joined the platforms, and settled her rifle against her shoulder.

"With me," she said briskly. "Let's remember there's not much cover up here. We don't have the space to get swamped."

Krios hurled a buzzing tangle of energy, and Shepard bit back a smile when it swept three Collectors clear off their platform. Methodical and savage and fast, Grunt's first volley carved a path through the next onrushing wave. Just behind her, she heard the tearing, splintering impact as one of Taylor's rockets hit home.

"Taylor," she said, and fired again. The burst chewed through another Collector's shields, and when it staggered, she finished up with a shot to its throat. "How's it coming?"

"Getting there."

On her other side, snake-quick, Garrus fired. Another shot tumbled a Collector off its platform, and a fifth tore another backwards. She straightened up again and matched him, each burst biting into shields and armour and segmented skin beneath. She was shooting dirty, vicious and implacable, rounds slicing into the back of their knees or the base of their heads as they spun and tried to lunge for Taylor where he was crouched.

"Commander," Taylor said, clipped. "_Shepard_."

She whirled upright, turning in the same motion. She heard Garrus as he moved, pushing up to his feet behind her, still firing.

The Reaper was hanging, lopsided and leaning over the gaping shadows. The broken ends of the tubes shone, wet and still dripping. Taylor loosed a rocket at the last of the tubes and without thinking, Shepard lifted her rifle and fired alongside it.

The rocket crashed into the tube, and she heard the gush of liquid and the terrible wrenching groan of metal as it twisted. She watched as it crumpled and fell and slowly, she let herself breathe out slowly.

"We clear?" she asked, and her voice came out sandy and strained.

"Yeah," Garrus answered. "Which is why they're not shooting at you any more."

"Nice." She stared at the empty space where the Reaper had been, where it had hung all full of the liquid that had been thousands and thousands of people. "Damn Reapers. Hiding just where you don't expect."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and he sounded slightly wry. "I'm just going to start assuming that whenever we infiltrate someone's super secret base, there's going to be a Reaper involved somehow."

"That might not be a bad idea." Slowly, she relaxed her taut grip on her rifle. "Okay. Taylor. Detonation gear. I don't want this place standing any longer than it needs to."

"Right away, Commander."

She knelt and helped him, her fingers busy on the clasps that kept the pack closed. "Lawson, you hear me?"

Her comm unit crackled unhelpfully, and eventually, Lawson said, "Yes, Shepard. I read you."

"Get yourselves back to the _Normandy_. Take it carefully but don't waste time."

"You're done?"

"Nearly. Get moving, Lawson." She picked up the timer and watched as Taylor checked the wiring again. "Joker, you still around?"

"Sitting on my ass waiting for you to do something," he responded, slightly indistinct. "Your ground team got through and the medbay is busy."

"Good," she said, and felt some of the tension seep from her shoulders. "I'm setting a timer and we're blowing this place skyhigh. I want everything ready to go and you've got fifteen minutes to do it."

"Nice to see you're not exactly breaking with your usual routine here, Shepard," Joker said, and she could hear him laughing. "We'll be ready. Just get yourselves out of there."

"We can do that. Thanks, Joker."

"Actually, ah," Joker said. "You've got an incoming message from your boss."

"The Illusive Man? Tell him I'm a little busy."

"Yeah, I think he _really_ wants to talk to you."

Shepard sighed. She rocked back on her heels. "Put him through."

"Shepard," Garrus said.

"Yeah?"

"I'm reading movement. Lots of movement. Under us."

"What do you mean, _lots?_"

* * *

><p>Garrus rolled under the searing red beam and reflected that maybe – <em>just maybe<em> – that fifteen minutes might not be enough.

Not since the unfinished Reaper had clawed its way back up, its huge metal hands digging against the platforms and its head all full of fire and filling the emptiness overhead.

It'd had happened too fast, the monstrosity lumbering up out of the shadows while Shepard was mid _fuck-you_ to the Illusive's Man insistence that the base be kept.

_She'd snapped the timer to go and turned and he'd seen her crooked, resigned smile as she saw it. _

"You know," Garrus gasped out, and dropped behind the edge between two platforms. "We could try just running."

"Ask me again in a few minutes," Shepard retorted. She uncoiled upright and her next volley scattered across the Reaper's ferocious scarlet eyes. "Besides, I'm sure we've had it worse."

He flattened his shoulders against the spar behind him. Another rocket thudded hard into the Reaper's neck and he gritted his teeth. "Bullshit."

"Sovereign," she said, pointedly.

_The walkway was full of geth and his mouth tasted acrid and he heard Joker's voice again, jarring and close to panic. _

_ "It's huge and it's going _inside_ the station. Shepard, it's inside!"_

_ "I read you. Hold on." _

_ Garrus fired again and another geth crumpled. On his other side, Alenko's whole frame glowed, and a geth spun backwards, wrapped in blue light. _

_ "Faster," Shepard said. "It gains control of the whole station and we're screwed." _

_ It would sink its claws into the control systems and open as many gateways as it needed to get a thousand and one of its ugly metal friends through and suddenly Garrus was running, fast enough that the muscles in his legs pulled. _

_ "Shepard," he called. "We get there and its already there. What then?"_

_ "Like I know?" She flung him a ragged grin. "We find something to shoot at it. Something to blow it up with. Something that will keep it the hell away from us."_

_ But all that had waited in the council chamber was Saren, and after he had stood up again, his limbs all long and thin and crackling scarlet, his voice had been Sovereign's. _

"I'm pretty sure," Garrus retorted, and aimed another shot at the Reaper's head, at the looming grey dome of its skull. "That Sovereign wasn't grinning at us."

"Yeah, yeah. Taylor, again. Krios, with him."

The Reaper shuddered, its hands snatching and grabbing at the edge of the platforms. Another rocket cracked hard into its head, and another followed and buried itself in the wide metal spars of its chest cavity.

"Shepard," Taylor shouted. "It's falling."

"I see it," Shepard answered.

Garrus could hear the raw, tired elation in her voice. Almost smiling, he forced himself upright and sighted on it as it swayed. "You know I'll get the last shot, Shepard."

"You wish, Vakarian. This ugly bastard's mine."

* * *

><p>The floor trembled under Shepard's feet and she pushed on, doggedly and painfully. She was aware of the wet slide of blood down one shoulder and the punishing ache that had taken up residence in her calves. Her rifle rattled against her back, slung loose into the harness after she'd snapped the order to run like hell.<p>

_The platform, giving way and plunging down and her stomach had somersaulted and then they'd hit something hard. _

She'd shouted them up, Garrus beside her, yanking Grunt to his feet, and they were running, the air around them all mazed with the bits and pieces of the walls that were falling away, sticky and thumping down onto the floor.

"Shepard," Joker said, unevenly and harried. "Shepard, tell me that's you I'm reading."

"Us," she said, and hurtled on. "Don't go anywhere."

"Cutting it close, Commander."

"Come on," Garrus said roughly, and grabbed at her wrist.

He tugged her on faster, and abruptly she was aware of bright light, yellow and stabbing and uncomfortable. Another slogging run took them down the trembling slope of the floor.

"There," Taylor said breathlessly. "See them. Just ahead."

"Yeah," Shepard answered. The _Normandy_, and she saw it as it filled the grey sky, lining up perilously close.

She skidded to an ungainly halt and motioned the others across first. Close to frantic, she gestured Grunt across empty air. She heard the thud as he cleared it to the airlock and then she was turning, guiding Krios and Taylor.

The gap was too small and too deep all at once and she could feel the tremors beneath her feet, rippling through the base.

"Shepard, you got friends following you," Joker said. "You got seconds."

"I know." She reached for Garrus and caught his arm and then they were both moving, his feet leaving the ground first, and his weight carrying them across the gut-churning emptiness.

She hit the airlock doorway hard, knees first, and rolled into the cushioning press of her armour. "Joker, go. Get us out of here."

Desperately, she dragged herself into the corridor, her hands still latched around Garrus' arm, hauling him after her. The airlock snapped shut, and she felt the rumble as the engines kicked in. She held on through the lurch as the ship shuddered and lifted and moved.

"Relay approaching," Joker said brusquely. "Hold on."

She closed her eyes and felt the surge as the ship coasted through. The inside of her mouth tasted coppery. The base of her spine throbbed, and slowly she realised that she was leaning against the curve of Garrus' shoulder, both them pressed up against the wall.

"Joker," she said, and did not try to sit up. "We clear?"

"All through, Shepard. Where are you?"

"Sitting just inside the airlock door."

"You're strange," Joker said, almost absently.

"Yeah. Update me. The crew?"

"Chakwas has full name lists. I know Chambers and Goldstein are in the medlab. Apparenty Zaeed has a hole in his leg somewhere. He was whining about it earlier."

"Thanks, Joker. I'll check with Chakwas later."

"Yeah. Commander? You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, and her head sagged against Garrus' shoulder. She smiled, and suddenly, stupidly, she was laughing, until her shoulders shook and her throat ached. "We're okay."

"Commander," Joker said, slightly sternly. "You're cluttering my walkway. Get out of there."

"Hard-ass." Reluctantly, she dragged herself to her feet, yanking Garrus up after her. He swayed into her and she caught him, her arms winding around his waist. "Hey," Shepard said, softly. "You okay?"

"I think I broke everything."

"No, you didn't."

"Fifteen minutes, Shepard," Garrus said, and rested his forehead against hers. "That was a long fifteen minutes."

"Yeah," she said, because she didn't know what else to say. "We got it."

"Yes, we did." Very gently, he bit at the side of her neck, sliding his face into the disheveled mess of her hair. "Don't you have things to do?"

"Too much." She breathed him in, all exertion and desperation and weapon oil. "Catch up later?"

Garrus laughed. "Sure," he said, and cupped his hands over her hips. "Since we're both, you know. Still here."


	23. Lull

_As always, the biggest thank-you to everyone who's following this story - your support means so much. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty-Three - Lull**_

The elevator opened onto the welcome stillness of the loft deck. Half leaning into the solid, reassuring weight of Garrus' arm, Shepard fumbled with the keypad.

"Shepard?"

"Mmm?"

"You know what we should remember to do next time?"

"Next time, what?" she asked, and made it across and into the clean, cool quiet of her quarters, Garrus trailing her. She breathed in the strange, sterile peace of the room, all white walls and unblinking soft lights and the blue ripple of the empty tank.

"Next time we blow something that big up," Garrus said.

"What?"

"Check to see if the giant human-shaped Reaper is actually dead or not before you set the timer to count down."

"Very funny, Vakarian. Very funny."

"I thought so."

Shepard unslung her rifle and her pistol, and slowly and painfully, she clipped them into place on their rack. The grenade belt followed, and the short-bladed combat knife, and the half-melted clump of something that had been one of her medi-gel packs. She eyed it distastefully and dropped it on the floor. Another heave of her arms had her weapon harness unbuckled and slung up. She worked her boots off, and then her chest piece, and she groaned as the clinging, sweaty weight of it all finally dropped away.

"Fuck me dead," she muttered.

"I'd rather not," Garrus murmured back, and his voice was as frayed as hers.

"I'm not having a shower. Complain and you get the couch."

"Nice."

She stifled a yawn against her palm. Somehow she wrestled with her belt and greaves and part of her mind noted the long, jagging gouges across the filthy surfaces. _Gotten a hell of a beating_, she thought, from when she'd taken that rough fall down a steep slope, or from when she'd ended up on top of a Collector, its claws raking at her shoulders and the butt of her rifle jammed against its throat.

She collapsed onto the bed and watched, mildly amused, as Garrus fought with the last buckles on his clothes. When he surrendered and just shredded the cloth underneath, she muffled a laugh.

"What?"

"You," she retorted. "You're hilarious."

"Glad to be of service."

He shrugged the fatigues off and stood, simply looking at her. The soft lights sent pale, ribboning patches across his shoulders and his face, all angles. She swallowed, and said, "Come here?"

"If I can make it that far." Unsteadily, he curled himself on the mattress beside her.

"You okay?" she asked.

He slipped one arm around her, and when his fingers tightened against her hip, she could feel him trembling slightly. "Yeah."

"Yeah," she said, and nuzzled her face against his shoulder. "Me neither."

The strange grey sleep of exhaustion claimed her, all full of loud noises and the salt scent that clung to her lips. She woke more than once, her arm pinned under Garrus', and she pried herself loose carefully. He mumbled something and grabbed her again, and she tried to fold herself against his side.

Later she woke with her heart thudding too fast and her tongue sticky against her teeth. Frantic, she looked at the clock, and soft light they'd left on, the one near the steps, and tried to steady her own breathing. Her fingers caught in the sheets, twisting. Something touched her shoulder, and her side, and desperately she turned into the warmth of Garrus' body.

"Sorry," she muttered against his shoulder. "Did I wake you?"

"I thought I woke you," he answered. He cupped one hand over the back of her head. "You okay?"

"Yes," she lied. "Strange dreams."

"Yeah."

She lay against him silently, listening to the soft motion of his hand over her hair, and the even way he breathed.

She thought of the thing in the base, the huge, swaying thing with the molten eyes and its mechanical veins all full of mush that had been people. She shuddered before she could help it, bone-deep tremors that shook her until Garrus pulled her closer. He did not bother with useless words, only held on until she opened her eyes.

"Sorry," she said again.

"Why?"

"You're sitting here calm as marble, and I'm shaking like a kid."

"I am shaking. You just can't see it."

"You lying turian bastard."

Garrus chuckled. "Maybe."

She turned, slinging one leg over his waist and angling herself against his chest. "You know what the worst part is?"

"What?"

"They're still out there," she said. "That what really gets at me. Yeah, we did well. But they're still coming."

"Thanks, Shepard. I was sitting here wallowing in our triumph, and you have to go and remind me of that."

She snorted. "I'm sorry."

"Well," he said. "Maybe we've made them at least a few days later than planned."

"Yeah," she said, half-smiling. "Our sinister tactics have worked. Delaying Reapers all over the galaxy."

Garrus laughed properly and rolled over, taking her with him so that she was sprawled across him. "As long as it works."

She buried her face against the side of his neck, and when his hands settled at the dip of her back, the last of the tension seeped out of her. "You make a good pillow."

"Thanks. I think."

She smiled, her lips moving against his skin. She was drifting somewhere close to sleep, lazily aware that his hands were moving, mapping out the contours of her back. Slowly and softly and as if it had been far too long since he'd touched her, he found the swell of her hip.

"You know," Garrus said, breathing the words out. "We actually got through that damn relay and back."

"Shocked?"

"A little," he admitted wryly.

"And the ship didn't blow up."

"Shepard. There's holes bigger than the shuttle torn in the cargo bay."

"Okay. Maybe it blew up a bit."

Garrus laughed, his whole frame shaking under her. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I say something?"

"Anything," she said, quietly.

"I want to say that I always knew we would," he said, haltingly. "Get through and get to the base and back. Because, you know, it's easy to say that afterwards."

"Yeah," she replied. "I know what you mean. It's got nothing to do with how much you plan or don't plan. You can't know you'll do it until you do."

"I think I actually understood that."

She laughed and teased the side of his shoulder with her teeth. "I'm flattered."

"So," he said, and this time, his voice stayed light. "Since we're both crazy enough to be awake, maybe we can entertain ourselves."

"Entertain ourselves? Is that we're calling it now?"

"Actually, I was thinking of a shower. You smell like a Collector."

Shepard laughed. "Smooth. For that, I get the shower first."

"How about you share?"

"Like we'll get clean doing it that way," she told him archly.

"Well, _eventually_ we'll get clean."

* * *

><p>Garrus braced his shoulder beneath the heavy sheet of metal. "Lined up okay?"<p>

"Looks good," Tali answered. "Hold it there."

He complied, squinting away from the glare of the welding gun. "I feel so useful."

"You should. I can't reach up there on my own."

"Funny. How's it coming?"

"Down here?" She changed her angle slightly, and turned her attention to the lower corner. "Slow but we're getting there. I can't really do much for the walls except cover up holes, though. Just enough to get us through until we can order in a full work-over."

"Yeah. Engineering?"

"Less of a mess than yesterday. Okay, you can let go."

He did, stepping quickly away. He eyed the sheet, lodged firmly into place. "Next one?"

"Here," Tali said, and motioned him to another metal square. "It's my, ah. My crew I'm more worried over."

Garrus hefted the sheet and winced when he misjudged the weight. He caught the edge of it too hard against his arm and paused long enough to balance it. "You mean the kids?"

"Just because you're getting old," she remarked. "Yeah. Ken and Gabby. They went straight back down as soon as Doctor Chakwas cleared them. They've been working as hard as I ask, and then more."

"Too much?"

"I don't know. Doctor Chakwas says they're eating fine. They both seem fine. They're not making mistakes down there, it's just," she said, and shrugged. She hefted the welder again and ran her other hand over the edge of the metal sheet. "Ken said something to me. About how he'd rather be working to keep his mind off it."

She meant the pods, and the Collectors, and the heavy humid silence of the base, and Garrus understood. "I get what he means. You keeping track of them?"

"Of course I am," she said, a little pointedly. "They're just…I don't know, Garrus. I can't imagine what it must have been like. Stuck in those pods."

"No."

"Can I ask you something?"

"I'm not going anywhere right now," he said drily.

Tali laughed. "Good point. Do you think we got there in time?"

"To the base?" He kept his gaze on some point over her shoulder, on the lights that flooded the cargo hold. "We got there as soon as we could."

"I knew you'd say that."

"It's still true."

"I know," she said. She leaned up and shifted the top corner slightly. "There?"

"Got it."

"I just keep thinking," she said. "I know we couldn't have gotten there faster. I know that. And then I keep thinking about how it would have been, to see what happened to the people in those pods."

"Yeah," Garrus said, very softly.

"It's crazy, really. They're walking around in Cerberus uniforms, and all I keep thinking is how awful it would have been."

"It's not crazy." He waited while she checked the seams at the edges of the sheet again. "You been sleeping alright?"

"Terribly," she said. "Part of it's because I know there's too much to do down here."

"Don't get swamped," he told her, fiercely. "If I'm not around, there's plenty of other slave labour to be found."

"I know," Tali said, and when she laughed, he thought that she sounded more like herself. "Okay. That one's done."

Garrus straightened up, rolling his shoulders until the ache in the middle of his back dissipated. "And the other part?"

Her shoulders sagged, and almost clumsily, she sat on the edge of one of the crates. "The base. The vent. I got through and then I didn't know if I'd ever get _out_ of the base again. I was scared, Garrus."

"Couldn't tell."

"You're a very bad liar." Her fingers twisted against each other. "I'll be fine," she said firmly, when he opened his mouth to say something about how she'd done damn well, how they all had. "Garrus, I'll be fine. I just need to think through it a few times."

"I understand," he said.

Her head lifted, and she asked, "What about you? Sleeping alright?"

"No, we're not," he said, and clicked his teeth shut. "I mean, yeah. Shit."

Tali laughed. "Garrus. It's okay. First off, Shepard said something about you two spending time together. Second, I really don't think Shepard is going to skin _you_ for saying something."

"No, of course not. I just," he said, and helplessly, he shrugged. "Can't believe I said that."

"So now I can ask you all sorts of awful things about it?"

"Tell me you're joking."

"Of course I'm joking. I'm not that cruel," she told him mildly. "Is she okay?"

"Shepard? Yeah," he said, softly. He tried to say something irreverent, but he thought of the two of them in the shower, scrubbing off the dirt and sweat and blood and the smell of the Collector base. He thought of how she had murmured his name, tender enough that his throat had tightened. He thought of how her hands on him had been greedy and seeking and desperate as if she was learning every inch of him again. "She'll be okay," he said.

"And you?"

"Me?" He summoned up a lazy grin. "Turians aren't scared of anything. Didn't you know that?"

"Sure they're not." Tali thumped his arm lightly. "Come on. We've still got one half of a wall letting in the stars."

* * *

><p>Shepard stepped into the stark white lights of the medlab. She waited, hands loose at her sides, while Chakwas straightened up from the bed near the door. "Hey, Doc. You busy?"<p>

"No busier than I've been all day." Chakwas smiled thinly and motioned her in properly. "Come in, Commander. What can I do for you?"

"How are we?"

"Hawthorne is up and moving and on orders to get himself back to the crew quarters to rest. Rolston should be out of here this evening."

"Good." Shepard watched the deft motion of Chakwas' hands as she reached for a tray. "What about you, Doc?"

"Doing what I need to do," she answered sharply. "No, I'm sorry, Commander."

"Don't be."

"There's plenty for me to do," Chakwas said, a little softer. "And I know I'm needed. Mordin has been dropping in as and when I ask, as well."

"Good," Shepard said again. "Doc, I was wondering if Chambers was awake?"

"Left bed near the other door."

"Thanks, Doc."

She made her way between the white-sheeted beds, the tang of antiseptic harsh in the air. She found Chambers on her side, one arm folded beneath her head, and her face waxen.

"Hey," Shepard said, gently. "Kelly. You okay?"

"Commander," Chambers answered, and twisted half-upright. She raked a hand through disheveled red hair. "I, ah. Yeah. Still breathing."

"That's always a good thing."

"I wanted to thank you, Commander. For coming for us."

"That's not why I'm here." Shepard sat, perching herself on the side of the bed. "Take as much time as you need. You and everyone else, okay?"

"Thank you."

"It's okay. I'm sure I'll be able to wrangle my little bit of the CIC all on my own."

Chambers grinned. "Good to know, Shepard."

Shepard nodded, and halfway back to the door, she stopped long enough to check in on Gardner and Patel. After she scrutinized the medical supplies and collected another report from Chakwas, she headed back out and through the mess hall.

At Lawson's door she hesitated, her hand hovering near the keypad. _Stupid_, she thought, and steeled herself. "Lawson, you busy?"

"Come in, Shepard."

The door slid open, and Shepard found her XO at the desk, her fingers flitting across one of her logs. She looked tired, Shepard thought, and supposed that they all must, what with the ship half-fixed and her crew running on double shifts.

Lawson's head lifted. "What do you need, Commander?"

"We need to talk."

Lawson's fingers stilled, and her eyes narrowed slightly. "About?"

Shepard chose the spare chair on the other side of the desk and sat. Bluntly, she said, "I didn't notice you leaping in to make sure I saved the base for your boss."

"No." Slowly, Lawson said, "May I speak freely?"

"Of course."

"Going in I thought that taking anything we could from the base would be the best course of action. Information, intel, anything. Then we were there, and there were so many people and so many pods."

"Yes."

"And then I thought that I didn't want to take anything from the base. And that perhaps no one should."

Shepard nodded. "And your boss. What's his angle going to be now?"

"You mean, will he send a small fleet of Cerberus ships to blow the _Normandy_ out of the sky?"

"Yeah," Shepard said, and grinned venomously. "That."

"I don't know," Lawson said, and shrugged. "Your contract with him ended when we came back through the relay."

"You know, generally people get to sign for contracts," Shepard said drily. "Yeah. I get that. And the ship?"

"The ship was another resource, given to you."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"And I don't know the answer," Lawson said, sharper. "Project Lazarus has essentially succeeded. You are here, alive, and you've been through the Omega-4 relay. The colonists and our crew were found, and we know why they were taken."

"You're still telling me things I already know."

"Yes. Because I cannot predict what the Illusive Man will do." Lawson smiled coldly. "Unfortunately."

"And the crew?"

"I've already had more than a few transfer requests fall onto my desk. Unless that wasn't what you were asking?"

"It was," Shepard answered. She pressed her hands against the top of her knees. "Okay. Thanks, Lawson."

"Shepard," Lawson said, and her voice hitched slightly. "We did well. I don't think I remembered to say that."

"I forgive you." She shoved upright and paused, smiling. "Do you have everything you need down here?"

"Yes, and far too much paperwork." Lawson's expression softened. "Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"It was the right decision."

"Hell, Lawson." Shepard turned, halfway to the door. "You going all soft on me or something?"

Lawson smiled. "Not at all."

"And here I was about to get all teary-eyed."

"Of course you were." Lawson's gaze fixed on her keyboard again. "Commander, I'm busy."

Shepard laughed. "I'll leave you to it."

* * *

><p>The days rolled on and into each other, and the exhausting end of another red-eye shift found Garrus meandering back up towards Shepard's quarters.<p>

She hadn't asked and neither had he and he wondered how quickly it had become so easy, _so absurdly normal_, that he'd end up in her quarters or else she'd find her way down to his.

He keyed the door open, and deliberately quietly, he stepped inside. He discovered her sitting at the desk, clad in shorts and a high-necked vest, and her eyes pinned on the console.

"Hey," he said, and scratched at the back of his neck. "You're awake already?"

"Yeah." She turned then, slowly, and when he saw her face, he wondered if she'd slept at all. "I'm in trouble."

"What?"

"I got a message. From my mother."

"Your mother?" he echoed. "She's okay?"

"She's fine. Apparently she's going to kick my ass when we get back."

"You never got in touch with her," he said, almost accusingly.

"Yeah. No, I didn't." She shrugged. "It felt too fucking weird. I kept thinking about it and thinking about it, and I wanted to, but there was too much to do."

"Sure there was."

"Okay, so I'm a fucking coward."

"I didn't say that," he said, softer. He crossed the floor and leaned against the desk. "How'd she find out?"

"She's tenacious." Shepard grinned and added, "Alliance brass spilled it to her."

"Hackett?"

"I guess. She's on the _Orizaba_. Captain." When he tipped his head at her, she explained, "It's a guilt-trip about doing my memory proud. Except of course I'm still kicking, so she feels thwarted."

"Bullshit."

"She wants to meet up, afterwards."

"You should."

"And say what? _Hey, Mom. Sorry I was dead for a while back there_."

"Shepard."

"Yeah, I know." She pushed her hands through her hair, white and scarred at the knuckles and he found himself watching the way the dark strands moved. "And no, I don't know if I mean after we get this shit with Cerberus sorted out, or after we get that other shit with the Reapers sorted out."

Garrus laughed. "I wondered."

"Hey, of the two of us, I'm the one with the parent who actually wouldn't blow sky-high knowing I'm sleeping with a turian."

"Mine wouldn't either, if I actually was sleeping with a turian," he retorted.

"Very funny." She shifted sideways in the chair, far enough that her head rested against his hip. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Absently, he carded his fingers through her hair until he found the slant of her cheekbone. "Well. Tired."

"We'll get there."

"I know it." He stroked his thumb down the side of her face, and part of him marveled at how her skin yielded under the slight, seeking pressure. "You never did buy me that victory drink."

Shepard laughed and tilted her face into his palm. "There's wine in the locker on the other side of the room. I'm afraid that's the best I can do until I can take you to a proper bar and get you hideously drunk."

"I feel so cared about."

She kissed the softer skin between his fingers. "You should. You want to sleep?"

"Well," he said, and tugged her up and out of the chair. "Soon."

She grinned and let him lead her across to the bed. There, she pushed him down and hauled his fatigues off and smacked his hands away when he tried to help. He laughed and grasped at her hips when she straddled him. He surged up under her and she met him, her hands flat against his shoulders and her dark eyes on his.

Afterwards, she stayed there, a lazy warm weight across his chest. Halfway to sleep, he cupped the back of her neck and murmured, "Anything else I miss today?"

"Mmm," Shepard said. "Lawson forwarded me a nice little report about purchases that can be traced all the way back to the Shadow Broker's grubby paws."

"Okay," he said, slowly. He rolled his thumbs under the base of her skull and felt her sighing response. "Be nice and explain why that's a good thing?"

"Some hardworking happy Cerberus operative flagged the data and sent it to Lawson. And since we ran into our own information broker down in Nos Astra, I figured maybe she could do something with it."

"Yeah," he said, and nodded. "We can do that."

Softly, Shepard laughed. She moved, straightening up, and he opened his eyes in time to see her staring down at him again.

"Hey," he said. "What is it?"

"You," Shepard replied wryly. "Taking up space in my bed."

"Your idea."

"Sure it was." She touched the side of his face, the soft pads of her fingers sliding against his markings. "Don't go anywhere."


	24. Storm

_A very big thank-you to everyone who's following this story; your support means so much to me. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty-Four – Storm**_

Shepard glowered at the console screen for another long, impatient moment. She sighed, changed the last two lines again, added her name, and concluded that the report was about as detailed as it was ever going to be.

She heard footsteps in the open doorway behind her, measured and quiet. "Garrus, that you?"

"Yeah," he answered, and when she felt his hands on her shoulders, light and warm, she smiled. "All done?" Garrus asked.

"I think so." She scowled at the screen again. "It's just my longer version of the 'yeah, we're alive, by the way, human-shaped Reaper' message that I sent to Anderson."

Garrus chuckled. "I'm sure he was pleased to get that one."

"The first part, perhaps." The letters on the screen were square and ordinary and suddenly – _desperately, painfully_ – she hoped she'd managed to get everything in there, the pods and the base and the Collectors, _the heavy humid heat and the gleaming wet walls and the pods, thousands and thousands of them, all of them full_.

The one that called itself – _themselves_ – Harbinger, and the way it had fallen into bleeding pieces again and again. The husks that had swarmed the arching corridors, their eyes gaping and silvery.

The Reaper, and the unfinished, frightening size of it as it hung there.

"Anderson needs the details," Garrus said, and his thumbs brushed the sides of her neck. "You give him the details. That's all we can do."

"There you go, being all sensible." Shepard threw him a quick smile over one shoulder. "Okay. Done and sent."

"Good." Almost idly, his hands strayed to her collarbones. "Did you want to talk about Nos Astra?"

"We play it however Liara wants it, I guess. I'm thinking quick and quiet, but that's all going to come down to what Liara even wants to do with the data."

"Okay," Garrus said. "And what about the other stuff?"

"You mean that bit about how I really should go and _talk_ to Liara?" She closed her eyes and briefly, she let herself feel nothing but the teasing pressure of his hands. "Yeah. That bit as well. I just…hell, Garrus. She was so different."

"I know."

"And the stupid part is I'm wondering if I'd been here the whole time, then," she said.

"That it'd be different?" Garrus leaned his chin against her shoulder, the edges of his mouth moving against her cheek. "You can't know that."

"No, but I can keep chasing myself in circles with it."

"Shepard."

She reached up, her fingers brushing the angles of his face. She could feel him breathing, warm and even. "We've done what Cerberus brought me back for, and now I guess I keep thinking about some of the things I missed."

"Keep thinking, or _still_ keep thinking?"

"Yeah," she said, and shrugged. "The second one."

"I know," Garrus said. "I don't know what I can do, but I do know."

"And that even sounded like it made sense," she told him, slightly archly. "You don't need to do anything you're not already doing."

"Oh?" His head turned, and he nuzzled at the side of her face. "Not even if I have some really good new ideas?"

Shepard laughed. She caught his chin, holding him there against her, close enough that her mouth brushed against his. "Those you don't need to keep to yourself."

"That's always good to know."

She felt him straightening up and away from her, and grinned when he spun her chair around. "We close?" she asked.

"ETA to landing, about thirty minutes, I guess."

"Time to look presentable, then."

"Shepard," Garrus said, and hauled her up to her feet. "Did we ever start?"

* * *

><p>Nos Astra looked the same, Garrus reckoned, all clean lines and full of light. The shining walkways of the trading floors were thronged, and he found himself absently eying the garish displays above the weapon merchants' kiosks. He trailed Shepard up the wide sweep of the steps. When they waited at the office door, he hesitated, wrestled with himself, and slung an arm around her shoulders. He was rewarded by her surprised, lilting laugh before he let her go.<p>

The door slid open, and Liara said, "You're here?"

Shepard grinned. "Expecting someone else?"

"That's not funny." Liara crooked her head at Shepard, and then the blue, searching weight of her gaze pinned Garrus. "You're both alright?"

"It was tough," Shepard answered. "We had to play catch-up with the bad guys at the end. I thought we'd have more time, but the Collectors really dug their teeth in."

"Yes." Liara smiled suddenly, a little too brightly. "Come in, please."

Garrus stepped into the white-walled office, as pristine as it had been the last time they'd dropped in on her. He sat beside Shepard, aware of her deliberately insouciant sprawl in the chair next to him.

She was trying to _prove_ it, he realised, and ached. She was trying to show that she was the same, two years and a handful of hurried conversations later.

_"I keep thinking about it, Garrus," Liara said. Her hands twisted on the table, fine-boned and elegant. "I can't tell you how many times I've gone over that recording." _

_ She meant her mother, and he could see it in her wide, limpid eyes and the uncertain way her gaze kept jumping between him and the table and the glare of the mess hall lights. _

_ "That's fine," he said, slowly. "Until you start driving yourself mad with it."_

_ "She must have thought that she could change him."_

_ Garrus barked out a laugh before he thought better of it. "Saren Arterius? Change the bastard?" _

_ "That's just the way you feel," Liara said, firmer. "She's still my mother."_

_ "When did you last see her?"_

_ "Many years ago." _

_He heard footsteps and twisted in his chair in time to see Commander Shepard as she stepped through the far door. She was mid-yawn, one hand pushing up through the glossy fall of her hair. _

_ "You guys are up already?" she asked. _

_ "Not sleeping well," Liara admitted. She leaned back in her chair. "Did you look at the information I forwarded?"_

_ "About your mother?" Shepard nodded. She kicked a chair out and slouched. "Yeah. I had a look. She has a commanding presence." _

_ "Yes, she does."_

_ "You say she's well-respected?"_

_ "She was," Liara said, her forehead creasing. "She was considered a great matriarch among our people." _

_ Shepard nodded. "Okay. There is something else."_

_ "What is it, Commander?"_

_ "When we hit Noveria, I need to know if you want to come with us."_

_ "And if not?" Liara asked tremulously. _

_ "Then we go anyway," Shepard said, gently. "You know that."_

_ "Yes, I know. I just…" Liara shook her head. "I have to come with you. I have to see her."_

_ "I understand." _

"We have another pretty package for you," Shepard said. She slid a slim datapad across the desk and added, "This is all the detail my XO pulled from the reports she was given."

"Cerberus."

"Liara," Shepard said. "Look at the data and decide what to do. Nothing, anything. Whatever you want. I'm just the messenger."

"I know. And I'm sorry, I certainly don't mean to sound ungrateful." Liara balanced the datapad between her hands. "It seems so often that I find myself _almost_ discovering something important, and then the trail closes on me."

"Because running into the Shadow Broker is something _everyone_ wants to put on their schedule," Shepard said mildly.

Liara smiled, her eyes flickering as she glanced at the datapad. "Alright. I can forward some of this to a contact. There's enough here that perhaps we can make a guess at the Shadow Broker's headquarters."

"Which I'm guessing is not likely to be easy to get to."

"There was always something missing," Liara said. "Whoever ever he is, the Shadow Broker isn't foolish. I've seen the inside of safehouses and bases that are run by contacts, operatives acting on his behalf. Never a useful trace that ever leads me to anything more than, well. Silence or bodies."

"This is a hell of a network you're coming up against," Garrus said thoughtfully. He remembered the Citadel, and how the Shadow Broker's stamp had been all over too many of the murders in some of the smoky wards, how he'd read of C-Sec hunting done nothing but air and the awful knowledge that they'd failed. "If they're going to know you, we're going to have to work this very carefully."

"If?" Liara echoed, slightly bitterly. "Garrus, I've been doing this for a while now. I'd be more surprised if they don't know who I am."

"Okay," Shepard said. "This one's your call. How do you want to do it?"

"For now, I'll bring my contact in on the details. After that," Liara said, and her face froze. "_Feron_."

"What?"

"Feron," she said, helplessly. "He's alive. Still alive. He's…he must be there."

"Liara," Garrus said, carefully. "Slow down. If we're going to do this together, we need to know what's going on."

"He's a friend. Was a friend." Liara let the datapad fall flat onto the desk. "He…I thought he was dead. It's been years. Two years. More than two years."

Liara's shoulders sagged, and Garrus looked away. Painfully, he understood. It was the wrenching gut-punch of suddenly _knowing_, or having the floor under your feet suddenly upend and become something strange and unknowable. It was hope and desperation all at once and he supposed he must've looked like that the day he'd punched up his omni-tool in time to read that Sidonis was alive.

"Hey," Shepard said, very gently. She leaned forward, reaching out so that she could touch the back of Liara's hand. "We can do a rescue mission just as well as we can do a hunt-the-bastard-down mission."

Liara laughed, a gulping, uneven kind of laugh. "Of course we can. I just need time. I need time to think. Perhaps you could," she said, and her voice wavered slightly. "Come by my apartment. Later. Two hours?"

"Okay," Shepard answered. "We'll be there. You going to be alright?"

Liara was already halfway to her feet, pushing upright, her hands sliding against the desk. "Yes," she said. Her gaze flitted to Garrus, and back to the desk, and settled on some point above Shepard's head. "Of course. Nyxeris can help you if you need anything on your way out."

The door closed on Liara's heels, and Shepard sighed. "So," she said, and flung him a lopsided grin. "Where do you go when you want to waste time in this city?"

"Apart from the nearest bar?"

Shepard laughed. "I think this counts as being on duty."

"Spoil my fun. You think we'll really be able to get close to the Shadow Broker?"

"If this info works, and if Liara's contact can make something of it, then I'll give you a definite maybe."

"I'm overwhelmed by your confidence," Garrus said mildly.

"It's just very," Shepard said, and scowled. "I was going to say _shadowy_. Go ahead and laugh."

"Never," he said lightly, and leaned sideways until his shoulder brushed hers. "And I know what you mean."

"You came up against him on the Citadel?"

"No, not really. Contacts, operatives, people doing things in his name. Sometimes it's hard to separate the real allies of the Shadow Broker from those who are just peddling information and want an extra helping of infamy." Garrus shrugged. "Whoever he is, somewhere someone knows far too much about anything worth knowing."

"So that little encounter we had with Fist wasn't anything out of the ordinary?"

"Well, there was that part where he thought he could screw the Shadow Broker over," Garrus said musingly.

"Yeah, that worked out well for him." Shepard uncoiled out of the chair. "Come on. Let's find something to look at for a while."

"Wow, Shepard. You and me alone down here and you're so romantic."

"Yeah, yeah. You knew what you were getting into."

He felt the unexpected pressure of her hand on his wrist, and ridiculously – _suddenly, frantically_ – he thought that his armour was heavy and stifling and too damn encasing. "Yeah," he said, and he saw her smile, that unfettered smile that softened her whole face. "Yeah, I guess I did."

* * *

><p>Nearly four hours later, Shepard stared down at Tela Vasir's broken body and wondered if all her encounters with Spectre colleagues were destined to end as badly. The asari had led them a hell of a dance through the crowded, glittering Nos Astra evening, and some small part of Shepard vaguely admired her tenacity.<p>

_That_, she thought, _and the damn slippery way Vasir had played her from the instant she'd stepped into Liara's apartment. _

"Liara," she said, and glanced across to where Liara was leaning against the rail. "You okay?"

Liara's head jerked up. "Yes."

"I'm sorry about your contact."

"Sekat. Yes." Liara nodded. "Thank you."

"You ever see Vasir before?"

"Before she tried to shoot me, you mean?" Liara smiled, and it looked faded and tired. "No. I knew her name. I knew she was a Spectre."

A Spectre who'd thrown her weight in with the Shadow Broker.

Like _she'd_ thrown herself in with Cerberus, Shepard thought, and Vasir had snarled it at her, the words half-drowned in the blood that had been filling her throat.

Shepard ran her fingertips along her rifle. She checked the muzzle, and underneath, she found a new scuff near the trigger. "Okay. Liara, I'd suggest we move ourselves back to the _Normandy_. You can hole yourself up with your data and take as long as you need to work through it."

"Yes. Yes, I think that's best. Sekat," Liara said, and her eyelids flickered. "I'm sure he will have left something in the data for me."

"Alright. Garrus, you ready to get going?"

"Actually," he answered, drily. "I thought I'd enjoy the view a while longer. Don't think I've been to this part of the city before."

"Didn't you get enough sightseeing done on the way in?" Shepard slung her rifle into her weapon harness.

"You mean during that bit where you tried to stop Vasir's skycar by hitting it with ours, while we were still hundreds of metres off the ground?"

"Yeah, that bit," Shepard retorted, and grinned. "And it wasn't _hundreds_."

"You know," Liara said, and the rigid tension in her face vanished. "I was afraid that I'd find you had both changed."

Shepard laughed. "Happy to disappoint. Now let's get ourselves out of here. If your Shadow Broker has enough clout to call up an army, then we'll need to be ready."

* * *

><p>The whole damn planet was wrapped in a crackling white net of lightning – Hagalaz, Liara had said its name was – and even here, three decks down in the Shadow Broker's ship, Garrus could feel the clamour of the engines as they fought off the wrenching slew and heave of the storm.<p>

He leaned his shoulders against the curve of the wall and out of methodical habit, explored the thin line that grazed the back of his wrist-guard. Shields hammered out and in close quarters, he'd thrown himself sideways too late, and the last shot had snapped a little too near.

It was a big, sprawling behemoth of a ship, all twisting corridors and smooth corners and finicky to work through. Visibility on the hull had been shot to shit, what with the lightning playing havoc and turning the sky livid. He'd resorted to firing almost blind more than a few times, with Shepard talking him clear. Inside the ship had proved almost as hectic, even with Jack flooding the low archways with biotic energy and Liara matching her as fast.

"Okay," Shepard said, hushed. "Ready to move?"

"And here I was enjoying my break," Jack responded.

"You're going nowhere," Shepard said. "You and Grunt. Don't let anything get past you, and shout out if you're getting swamped."

"Guard duty," Jack said, and bared her teeth in a venomous grin. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Shepard turned. "Okay. Garrus, Liara. You're with me. I'm guessing whoever this bastard is, he's waiting for us."

"To talk," Liara said, very quietly. "Take away the operatives and the ship and all that's left are the secrets. He'll want to prove he knows who we are, inside and out."

"He can talk all he wants," Shepard said. "After he hits the switch on central operations."

Cutting the power, Garrus thought, and somehow getting Feron up and out. They'd left Taylor and Massani with him, but Garrus had seen the vacant helplessness in the drell's eyes, the awful emptiness that he knew meant the drell had been strapped into that damn chair for far too long. And all, Garrus thought, because the drell had owned the audacity to get himself too close to the Shadow Broker.

He settled his rifle against his shoulder, and when Shepard motioned them forward, he flanked Liara. The floor sloped up to another archway, and through to a high-roofed chamber. Just ahead of him, Shepard froze, and he followed her gaze to the strange, hulking shape that filled the space behind a wide grey desk.

"Commander Shepard," the creature said, and the low rumble of its voice made Garrus' shoulders stiffen. "I wondered how long it would take you to get here."

"Of course you did," she answered. "I'm wondering how long it's going to take you to kill the power in here."

"For the drell. No, I don't think so."

"Then we do this the hard way."

"You're predictable, Commander," the creature said. Its hands shifted on the desk, thick sinewy fingers pressing against each other. "Though you travel with interesting companions. Does your friend Archangel know about the bounty that's still on his head?"

"Be helpful and tell me how high it's gone, why don't you?" Garrus retorted. He was staring at the creature, staring at the strange unsettling way its face seemed to be all teeth and too many eyes.

"Yeah, I get it." Shepard stepped forward, her rifle leveled at the creature. "This is the part where you want to talk it all back and forth. How about we skip this part, and you just let me know whether you'll be complying or we'll be shooting you."

The creature's gaze swung back to Liara, and its mouth split even wider. "Doctor T'Soni," it said, and Garrus could've sworn it sounded like it was almost laughing. "Your meddling brought this about. And even now, you're ignorant. You touch the edges of things worth knowing and think you have knowledge. I know who you are, all of you, who you are and what you are, and you fumble for the scraps of secrets."

"Actually," Liara said, breathlessly. "There's something I know about you. About who you are and what you are. You're a yahg."

Garrus had time to wonder if _he_ could remember what the hell a yahg actually was before the creature screamed something back at her. It was pushing up to its feet and moving and when he lined his rifle up, he heard Shepard call out for him to keep it pinned back near the desk.

His first shot clipped the creature in the shoulder and the second sank into the solid meat of its upper arm. Neither staggered it, and Garrus growled, low in his throat. A tangle of biotic energy cracked hard into its chest, and it howled.

Too fast, it spun, and Liara's next attack thundered over its head. Six charging steps took it to Shepard, and Garrus saw the punishing impact as it slammed into her, shoulder-first. Head-down, rifle up and held flat, she coiled and braced herself.

It was too close, Garrus knew, too damn close for him to shoot, too close with its head dipping down towards hers and her back to him.

She moved, tearing herself clear and driving the butt of her rifle up against its head in the same wrenching motion. The creature flailed at her, one huge grasping hand closing over the rifle's muzzle and yanking. She twisted, shifting her weight forward and up onto one foot and slamming her fist into the creature's jaw.

The creature whirled away from her, and when she dropped flat, Garrus fired. Snake-fast, the shot bit into the creature's chest, and the follow-up burrowed into the top of its leg. It swayed, and a surge of blue energy swept over it and sent it stumbling.

"Hell, Vakarian," Shepard said, as she straightened up. She threw him a crooked smile. "You call that pinning him down?"

"Yeah, yeah," Garrus replied, almost absently. "You got any better ideas?"

"Actually," Shepard said, and when she looked at the creature again, wreathed in crackling blue light, he guessed that she was gauging her distance to it. "I think I might."

* * *

><p>Half-dressed, with her hair still damp and in a finger-combed mess at the back of her head, Shepard glared at the contents of her fatigues locker. She pushed past another black and white shirt and finally discovered a dark blue vest, unadorned and slightly faded and she thought she'd picked it up on the Citadel, that time she'd dropped in to tell Anderson that she was still kicking.<p>

She thought of the yahg on its ship, and how it had kept itself hidden away, hidden amid the labyrinth of knowledge and secrets and rumours that its operatives piped into the consoles every hour of every day. She thought of how Liara had spoken up, of how she'd taken the weight of all those secrets and all those rumours and how she'd sounded almost like she believed it might be the right choice.

She shrugged the blue vest on and meandered back across the clean white confines of her quarters. She paused long enough to pull her boots back on before the comm station beeped. She leaned on the button and said, "What's up, Joker?"

"Hey, Commander?"

"What?"

"Apparently you punched a yahg today."

She smiled. "Yeah. I did. You talked to Liara?"

"Yeah, she's on her way up to you now. One question?"

"What?"

"What's a yahg?"

"Go read a book," she told him wryly.

"Thanks so much, Commander."

She chose the couch and then the spare chair and briefly wondered why either one really mattered. When she finally heard footsteps, she was at the door almost before Liara spoke.

"Yeah, come in," she said, and hit the keypad. "Catch up with Tali?"

"Yes," Liara answered, and smiled. "We talked for quite a while. And I spent some time with Doctor Chakwas as well."

"Good." Shepard gestured her in and across to the couch. "Sit down."

"Thank you." Gracefully, Liara sat, her hands clasped in her lap. "I need to apologise."

"For what?"

"Today," Liara said, and exhaled slowly. "I was not at my best, I think."

"Perhaps not, but it was you after you'd just heard a friend was still alive. Add one Spectre with murderous intentions, and I think I can forgive you."

"Shepard," she said. "Will you ever take things seriously?"

"Not if I can help it. And I am taking things seriously. I can't know what it was like for you, seeing Feron again today. I think I can understand some of it."

"Yes," Liara said. "I know what you mean."

"He's okay?"

"Feron?" Liara shook her head. "As well as he can be. He's going through the Broker's datafiles. I wondered if he should be resting instead, but apparently he's done enough sitting down lately."

"Yeah, I understand that."

"Shepard." Liara looked at her, and her blue gaze was uncertain. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Tell away."

"No, it's serious."

"I'm listening," Shepard said, gently.

"It's to do with why you're with Cerberus."

"Go on."

"It was me," Liara said.

Shepard swallowed. Something was tightening in her stomach, and some part of her realised that _this_ was why Liara had looked at her strangely on Nos Astra, looked at her so strangely when she'd sauntered in and asked about a drell assassin and an asari Justicar.

"It was you," Shepard echoed. "What do you mean?"

Shepard listened, her hands clenching against the tops of her knees, while Liara told her, told her how she'd heard about the _Normandy_ attacked, and torn apart, and KIA reports, and how she'd found her way to Feron, and he'd said something about Commander Shepard, and all that was left – _her body, her remains, whatever the fuck had been left down there in the ice on Alchera. _

"You handed," Shepard said, and the words threatened to unstring her. "Handed me over to them."

"Yes."

"Because I'm human."

"Because they spoke for humanity. I didn't trust them. But I saw that they could do what they promised."

"Okay." She swallowed down another breath. "Okay. I get it. I get it."

"Shepard, I'm so sorry."

"For not leaving the fucking frozen bits of my carcass where they were?" Shepard grimaced. "Sorry. That was unfair."

"No, it wasn't."

"God." She pressed her knuckles against her forehead, almost hard enough to hurt. "I didn't…God, I'd thought I was past thinking over this."

"I had to tell you," Liara said, and her breathing hitched. "I gave you up to them because they could do something I could not."

"Yes. Yeah, I get it. I just," she said, and somehow she pried her hands away from her face. "I just kind of thought this was going to be a nice lighthearted catch-up evening."

"After defeating the Shadow Broker?"

"And replacing him," Shepard conceded. "Think you'll be okay?"

"Shepard, you're deflecting."

"Of course I am. Because here all along I thought Cerberus just went out and dug me up."

"What did they tell you?"

"Lawson said I'd _been recovered_." Shepard shrugged, awkwardly, to mask the urge to vault up off the couch and pace until the sound of her footsteps might drown out the rapid thud of her own pulse. "I didn't…hell, I didn't want to think about it. It was confusing enough as it was."

"I understand."

"So," Shepard said, and swallowed past the thick ache in her throat. "You want to move onto the nicer stuff now? I mean, we've had a hell of a day. Might even deserve it."

"It was rather eventful."

"Yeah, I'm thinking of that part where I fell off the building."

"Shepard," Liara said, and the corners of her mouth moved. "You threw her off the building and went with her."

"Technicality. How did you know what he was? The Shadow Broker, I mean."

"Oh." Liara smiled properly. "It was nothing secretive. I just happened to know due to something I'd read once and remembered. Something about the Council's first-contact teams to the yahg homeworld. Parnack, I think it's called."

Shepard snorted. "The Shadow Broker, driven to defeat because you remember everything you've ever read. Guess I'm not the only one who hasn't changed all that much."

"I suppose not," Liara said lightly. "I am a better shot now, though."

"I noticed that part. Practice?" It was easier, suddenly, to fill the tenuous silence, to throw words into the gulf between them. Words that might somehow ease the twisting knot that had lodged in her chest, somewhere halfway between anger and uncertainty.

"Need," Liara corrected, drily.

"That happens. So," Shepard said, gently teasing. "Do I get to ask about you and Feron?"

Liara laughed. "No. We're at that strange stage of friendship. The one you get when you've double-crossed each other at least twice."

"Oh, _that_ one. Yeah, everyone gets that once in a while."

"Very funny. Are you alright?"

"About what in particular?" Shepard asked, half-smiling.

"You've dealt with the Collectors."

"Yeah," she said, and nodded. "I know. But I'm not back with the Alliance."

"You want to be?"

"Yeah, I do," she replied, honestly. "I'm just not sure how it'll play out. I need them to listen to me, and I'm not sure they'll see past the colours plastered all over my ship right now."

"Yes," Liara said. "I'd like to say that it would be easy."

"But why break with our routine?" Shepard leaned back against the couch. "Do you have to go anywhere fast? Any other criminal empires to topple?"

"You're making fun of me."

"A little," Shepard admitted. "It's been good to see you again. Properly see you."

"Yes, it has." Haltingly, Liara added, "I would stay if I could. But I think I might be more help to you elsewhere."

"I understand."

"Though," Liara said, and smiled. "I suppose I could stay for a while. After all, I have my own ship now."


	25. Wayfarers

_Life has been rather hectic lately, so many apologies for the rather huge gap between chapters. Bioware owns nearly everything. As always, reviews are always welcome. And a big thank-you to everyone who is following and supporting this story.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty-Five – Wayfarers**_

In the warm half-darkness, Garrus lay beneath Shepard, her legs parted over his waist, and his hands flattened over the backs of her thighs. Soft skin and the shift of muscle beneath when she moved, and then she lifted her head, her breath coming warm against the side of his neck.

"Mmm," she mumbled. "Is it morning yet?"

"Almost."

"I really don't mean this in a bad way," she said, blinking slowly. "But how the hell did I fall asleep right on top of you?"

"You were tired," he said, dead-pan.

"Right. Thanks."

"_Very_ tired. It may have been my fault."

She laughed, the sound of it low and blurred with sleep. "Nice to see your confidence isn't easily knocked."

"Some things I'm very happy to take the blame for."

She sank down against him again, her head nestling beneath his chin. The thought burst unbidden through his mind, that she fit well against him, that they fit well against each other.

The days were running away from them, he thought, awkwardly and too fast. _Easier_, Shepard had said, the day they'd seen Liara back to the ship that she'd claimed as her own, _easier to fill the hours doing something_. He'd agreed, but he still wondered if she was counting down the days as much as he was.

There had been the day Legion had asked for a meeting, its voice all full of deference and what sounded like uncertainty. Not all geth were geth – _or something like that_, Garrus thought, _the heretics who had allied themselves with the Reapers, with the Old Machines who had reached into their heads and gave them purpose_ – and that these geth were different.

And standing the airless silence of a geth station, he'd wondered briefly if he was going slightly crazy. Standing up for a geth, a geth that called them all by name, and even feeling the smallest brush of worry when he'd realised the damn geth – _their damn geth_ – had gone up against a stampeding brute of a prime on its own.

Shepard stirred again, the whole warm length of her body sliding delightfully against his. Garrus let his hands stray up to the swell of her hips, and to the arch of her back above. Not hurrying, he repeated the movement, and again, until she sighed.

"Feels good," she murmured.

"Good. You're so," he said, and hunted for the right word. "Soft."

"Mostly I'm just taking advantage of the fact that you're obsessed with my back."

Garrus chuckled. "Something like that." He slid his hands over her shoulders, his fingers digging in a little harder. "Isn't there," he said, and hesitated. "You know. Stuff that you miss. With humans."

"Yeah. Totally. I completely miss having to order you to wax your chest."

"What?"

"Garrus," she said, and leaned into the crook of his shoulder. "I know you're not human. It's kind of hard not to notice."

"That wasn't what I said."

"I know. I think it's more," she said, and he heard her pause as she weighed her words. "I think it's more that I'm thinking about what's new. What's different, rather than what's missing. And besides, it goes both ways, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," he said. "I guess it does. I'm not even sure why I asked that."

"Because it's the middle of the night, and because you're thinking the same thing that I am."

"Yeah? You can read my mind now, can you?" Teasingly, he moved until he found the back of her neck with his tongue. Warm and slightly salty and he felt her shiver in response.

"I'm thinking that we've got a ship that's looking a bit emptier right now, what with so many of our Cerberus colleagues handing in their paperwork."

"Colleagues," Garrus echoed, and laughed. "That what we're calling them now?"

"I was trying not to say _enforced partnership_. And anyway," she said, and straightened up enough that she was looking down into his face. "You didn't let me finish. You're thinking it because we both know damn well that either the Reapers or the Alliance are going to come knocking and we're going to have to do a lot of explaining. You're thinking that this might change."

"Yeah, I am," he admitted, quietly.

She didn't push him, didn't try to pull the words from his mouth, and he should have known she wouldn't.

"Me too," Shepard said, into the stretching silence. She braced her hands on his chest, her thin human fingers distractingly silken. "But then I figured that I'm going nowhere. Even if I have to chase Reapers all over the galaxy, you'd better be damn well waiting for me when I get back."

Garrus laughed, and painfully, it caught in his throat. "How about I just come with you?"

"Sounds perfect. Except for that part about the Reapers."

"Well, yeah. Got to have something to keep us occupied though."

"Guess you like to aim high, huh?" She was smiling, unguarded and easily. She leaned back, and the light swam in her hair.

"Always," he responded, and shifted so that he could wrap his arms around her waist.

"Good." Her hands found his chin, and then the angles of his face, and the softer place just beneath his fringe. "Because you're stuck with me."

He tried to think of something to say, something irreverent and pointless and his voice wouldn't obey. Instead, he dropped his head against the line of her shoulder. He could feel her pulse and he knew that there was a small scar there, ribboning down and across her collarbone and absurdly he wondered how it was that he knew the contours of her so well.

Wordlessly, she guided his hands to her hips. Together they fumbled the sheets aside until she was straddling his lap. He rocked himself into her, slowly, her hands still knotted at the back of his neck. He breathed her name into her ear and she shuddered and tightened around him. As tenderly, he let the points of his teeth brush the slope of her neck. His hands slipped up to cradle her shoulders, and she murmured, "Yes."

She fell off the brink before him – _only just_ – with her own fingers between her legs and her gaze locked on his.

Garrus touched her cheeks and the underside of her chin and felt the flushed heat in her. "You know what?" he asked.

"What?"

"It really is morning now."

Shepard laughed. "You always know the right thing to say."

"I try."

Her hands were on his face, brushing the spread of his scars and the sharper angles above. She was looking at him, searchingly, as if she could keep the clock and the rest of the world banished by not moving, by staying where she was, curled around him.

"Shepard," Garrus said, and startled himself when he realised he'd spoken aloud.

"I know, I know," she answered mildly. "I need to get off you."

"Well, yeah. Though actually I was going to say something about how good you feel. Sitting there. On me, I mean."

He'd almost expected her to laugh – _and he'd almost hoped that she would_ – but instead, she pressed her mouth against his markings. Shakily, he cupped the back of her neck, his thumb rolling over the hurried warmth of her pulse.

"Of course," he said, and when she straightened up, he saw that she was smiling. "You probably do need to get off me as well."

* * *

><p>The <em>Normandy<em> drifted into dock at the Citadel, and ten minutes later, Shepard was down the walkway and into the crowded maze of the ward. Farewells were a strange beast to wrestle with, she thought. Half goodbye and half tidying-up of a contract and yet she knew the acknowledgement was needed, the shared awareness of it.

Four days ago, she'd farewelled Grunt amid the dusty stone of Tuchanka, and lingered long enough to trade stories with Wrex before heading shipboard again. She'd watched the high spars of rock swallow him – _both of them_, she thought, Grunt and Wrex and all her hectic memories of the place – and she'd realised that this must be it, the beginning of it.

And today, she'd already seen Samara in the briefing room, the Justicar's face filled with something partway between sadness and peace. She'd touched Shepard's arm, and smiled, and then she'd been gone, her graceful, predatory steps taking her out of the ship.

"Shepard," Massani said, from somewhere behind her. "You working on blending in, or is this how you usually look?"

Shepard smiled and turned. "Just admiring the scenery."

"Sure you are."

"You all sorted?" she asked genially.

"Yeah, got everything together." Massani hesitated, his gaze narrowed and thoughtful. "Had a bit more fun than I thought."

"Says the man who headbutted more than a few Collectors, as I recall."

"They had it coming," Massani protested.

"Glad I could keep you entertained."

"Hah." Massani smiled lopsidedly. "Look, Shepard. You need someone to help you kick the Reapers in the balls when they get here, look me up."

"Noted," she answered. "Thanks, Zaeed. Stay safe."

"Never learned how."

She grinned. After he strode away, she turned and meandered her way to a low bench, beneath another wall of garish, shifting screens. She sat and absently eyed the thronged plaza, people moving and sliding past each other, wonderfully disordered and uncaring.

A shadow slanted across her, and she remarked, "You're walking rather loudly there."

"Perhaps," Krios responded. "Thank you for waiting for me, Commander."

"It's no trouble, you know that." She waited until he sat beside her, his shoulders trim beneath the glossy fall of his coat. "Few plans for today anyway."

"That makes me a little envious, I admit," Krios said.

"Can I ask what you'll be doing?"

"I will be speaking with Captain Bailey," Krios answered. "And I will be speaking to my son."

Shepard nodded. "I hope it goes easily."

"Such things rarely do," he said, and smiled. "But I find that I have the patience now, and very much the inclination to do so."

"Look," she said, a little awkwardly, and the words ran away from her. She wanted to say something about how much time he didn't have, and suddenly, painfully, she was not sure how. "In the future. If there's anything I can do."

"Commander Shepard," he said. "I appreciate what you are saying. Thank you."

"You know, I'm pretty sure I should be thanking you. You know, for coming through the relay and all."

"The relay was rather expected, don't you think? At least," he said, and his smile turned slightly wicked. "Compared to other things. The rather large human-shaped Reaper springs to mind."

"Yeah, that part was particularly energetic as I recall. You going to be okay?"

"I think so," he answered. The wry amusement in his face faded. "And you, Commander?"

"We'll get there," she said.

"Of that I have little doubt. May I offer a suggestion?"

"Go ahead."

"Do not," Krios said, and his voice roughened. "Do not let it drown you. This thing that you have to do. Do not let it turn you from everything else."

"You know," Shepard said honestly. "I really want to say that I won't. But then I'd be going and thinking that things might be simple."

"And they never are." He tilted his head to one side. "I should leave you to your thoughts."

"Say hi to your son for me," she said, deadpan.

Krios smiled. He uncoiled upright in one fluid motion. "Perhaps, Commander. You will take care of yourselves, I hope?"

"Ourselves?" Shepard peered up at him suspiciously. "So much for secrets, huh? Or is it some weird assassin thing?"

"It is, I believe, merely a weird observation thing," he responded, and she was almost certain he was laughing at her.

"I believe you. Watch out for yourself, Thane."

"And you, Shepard."

She watched as he vanished silently into the crowd, a slim-hipped shadow. She tapped her comm unit on and asked, "Hey, Vakarian? You lurking anywhere nearby?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Garrus answered. "Actually, I'm gazing longingly at a very attractive set of armour right now."

Shepard laughed, and it eased the strange, tight knot in her chest. "Enjoying the pretty things, are we?"

"Very much. You okay?"

"I guess," she said, and it was almost true. "You want to give me some directions so we can go get you that drink I promised?"

* * *

><p>Garrus found her holed up at a small table at the far end of the restaurant, slumped back in the chair and two drinks already arranged in front of her. Her head lifted and she smiled, her eyes meeting his as he crossed the floor.<p>

"Took your sweet time," Shepard said mildly.

"Yeah, yeah." He pulled out the chair opposite and sat. "What did you get?"

"Something obnoxiously expensive." She grinned and added, "I don't think that Cerberus funding will last all that much longer. Got to throw it at something useful."

Garrus laughed. He curled his hands around the glass and eyed the contents, pale and shimmering. "Smells good."

"That's your technical critique?"

"Of course it is. And don't try to tell me that human soldiers are able to get their hands on the good stuff while they're working their way through bootcamp."

Shepard laughed. "As I remember it, we once lowered ourselves to some really nasty shit that one of the guys made himself. You could've cleaned weapons with the stuff."

"That sounds like a story."

"A few stories," she said, and her smile turned rueful. "All of them ending with the kind of hangover that could kill."

"We've all been there. It always seems like a good idea at the time."

"And here I thought turians would be flogged so hard they'd have no time for such things."

"Depends how inventive we are," he retorted.

"So," Shepard said. "What was the first mission you got handed?"

"After basic?" When she nodded, he explained, "It was pretty standard, as I recall. We were after a bunch of mercs, dug in deep and most of them with ties to the Blue Suns."

"And you dealt with them all in a satisfactory and heroic manner?"

Garrus laughed. "Yeah. Sure I did. I think I dropped my weapon at least twice. Got a few dents in my armour and more than a few in my confidence."

"Could be worse. I remember an early planetside mission. It was hot and humid and the whole damn place was full of fog. We scoped out a perimeter," she said, and raised her drink again. "And since our first comb-through caught nothing, well, hey, that meant we were free and clear."

"What happened?"

"I had the dumb luck to be facing the right way when I thought it'd be a brilliant idea to take my helmet off and check the back of it. I got halfway through before we got rushed, and I'd swear to this day, it was only because I was facing the damn treeline that I had enough time to get my helmet back on properly before the bastard took a shot at me."

She was still smiling, crookedly and almost without humour, and he understood. It was the stupid, pulse-pounding realization that you'd come an inch from something awful, something that would've been at least half your own damn fault.

"Never underestimate dumb luck," Garrus said. "It's gotten me a fair way in life."

"Sure it has."

He drank, and the wine flooded his throat, cool and crisp and sharp. "Shepard," he said, after the silence pooled between them. "Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Whatever's bothering you," he told her, pointedly. "You keep staring over my shoulder."

"Sorry." Her fingers shifted uneasily against the table. "It's ridiculous. We're letting people go and I'm feeling like I just kicked them out."

"It's not ridiculous," Garrus chided, gently. "Stepping clear is rarely easy. From either side. I know it bothered me."

"Yeah," she said, and nodded. "I get that. I do. It was probably the right choice, though. You said yourself C-Sec needed the help."

"Yeah, and we all know how well that turned out," he said viciously. He remembered how he'd tried to juggle the paperwork and the endless orders from higher up and lower down and how he'd wondered if some of the worst-hit wards were ever going to get themselves back into shape. How he'd come home to a message and gone to see Anderson and heard the words that had turned his heart upside down. "Sorry. I didn't mean to…yeah."

"Hey," she said, and touched his wrist. "It's okay."

"Yeah, but I was meant to be listening to _you_."

She grinned. "It's okay if it goes both ways, you know. I promise."

Garrus gulped at the wine, and it seared too quickly down the back of his throat. Before his nerves could abandon him, he said, very quietly, "Won't catch me doing that again."

"What? Working for C-Sec?"

"Walking away from you."

"Garrus," she said, her voice hitching slightly.

"Of course," he added. "That was a little different, I guess. I mean, back then, I didn't know about the wonderful things you can do with your mouth."

She spluttered into a laugh. "Your honesty," she said. "It shames me."

"Yeah, yeah. Of course it does."

"And, you know," Shepard said. "You don't need to do that all the time."

"What?"

"Try and make me laugh every time you say something serious."

"And here I thought it was working." Haltingly, he folded his hands over the back of hers.

"It is working." She rolled her hands palm-up beneath his, so that he could wreath his fingers between hers. "But I'm okay with the serious parts as well."

"Okay," he said, breathing the word out slowly. Through her gloves, he could feel the wiry strength in her hands. "Okay. That's, ah. Good to know."

He let her go, eventually, slowly, and her fingertips dragged against his when she leaned back. The silence welled up again, and this time, it was easier – _wonderfully, companionably easy_, he thought – to simply sit and notice nothing more important than the way her fingers curled around the glass, or the way she was working through the wine inch by absurdly methodical inch.

"What?" Shepard asked mildly. "What's so funny?"

"Am I laughing?"

"You're about to."

"You're so determined," he said, and flared his mandibles into a smile. "All the time."

"I'm flattered," she retorted. Her omni-tool flickered, and she scowled down at it. "Shepard here. The ship better be on fire."

"Sorry, Commander," Joker said, and Garrus heard a strange, resigned note in his voice. "No fire. Nothing nasty eating the hull, either."

"What is it?"

"I've just had Admiral Hackett saying hello. He'd really like to talk to you."

Shepard stilled, her fingers tightening against the glass. "Not a social call, then?"

"No. He didn't elaborate, and I figured you'd want to know."

"Thanks, Joker." She paused, her forehead furrowing slightly. "Get back to Hackett, tell him I'll be there and ready to talk in twenty-five minutes. Put him through to my quarters."

"Got it, Commander."

"And tell Lawson and Taylor to meet me in the briefing room first."

"Sure."

"Shepard," Garrus said, and noticed the thoughtful way her eyes had narrowed. "You're thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Probably," she answered, and shot him an unrepentant smile. "And this way, at least they can't say that I haven't warned them."

* * *

><p>Shepard strode into the briefing room and the terse, impatient silence hit her like a punch to the gut.<p>

"I know this is short notice," she said, and kept her tone brisk and clear. She looked across to Lawson, all cat-still poise. "And I won't know exactly what Hackett wants until I've talked to him."

"My guess is the good admiral wants to acknowledge your existence now that we've taken out the Collectors," Taylor said. "You know, now the messy work's done."

She wanted to snarl back at him that Hackett had _always_ been there, quietly and carefully and delicately. He'd sent her down to the empty white wastes of Alchera to pick her way through the torn-apart bones of her ship. He'd never once requested detailed explanations as to why and how she'd been able to forward painfully recent reports of colonies as they'd been plucked clean. And she was damn sure he'd had something to do with how her mother had surfaced from the _Orizaba_, and how the message had only come through _after_ the _Normandy_ had cleared the Omega-4 relay both ways.

"I'm guessing you're right," Shepard said, steadily. "The issue remains, however. At some point I will be stepping back into Alliance space, and if you don't want to be here when it happens, you're free to take off whenever you like."

"So," Lawson said. "Is this a warning or a suggestion?"

"It's whichever you'd prefer. I could even throw in some extra shit about how you're walking around in the colours of a known terrorist organization, if you want."

"Alright," Taylor said, slowly. "I'm listening. You got any kind of timeframe yet?"

"No," she admitted. She rested her hands on the table. "But you both need to understand that at some point, I'll need the Alliance, and I'll need them behind me. The Reapers are coming and I'm damned if I'm only having one ship to point at them."

"And you think they'll listen?" Lawson's mouth creased into a sardonic smile. "Like the Council listened?"

"They'll listen. They have to," Shepard said, and the words fell cold and uncertain. It was half a lie and half a clawing, desperate hope, and she wondered if they could see it in her face. "It's your choice. Both of you. Stay or don't stay. Go or don't go. I'm not going to push you either way. You've both put a hell of a lot of hours and sweat into this assignment, and I've been proud to have worked alongside you."

"Commander," Lawson said, almost teasingly. "I never thought I'd hear that kind of admission from you."

"Don't overdo it," Shepard retorted. "I said _you_, not Cerberus."

"Noted," Lawson said lightly.

"I'll keep you updated." She turned away from the table, and six brusque steps took her out of the briefing room and into the corridor beyond. She ducked through the CIC and into the elevator and realised that her stomach had knotted.

_A long time_, she thought. A long time since she'd been able to call herself a soldier. She'd kept the Spectre name – _useless mercy_, she'd thought at the time, an empty handout from the Council – but it wasn't the same, and it could never be, not really. She'd marched herself into recruit training – and _God she'd been so young then_ – because it was easier than not doing it. She'd done it because she'd been shuttled between crowded shipboard chaos and brief planetside downtime until it had seemed the only way a life might be organized.

She keyed the door open and the jumping comm console light assailed her. She ignored it long enough to unfasten her armour and stack the pieces on the rack. Almost guiltily, she chose crisp fatigues that were blandly grey. She shoved her hands through her hair, inwardly cursed herself for being too fucking timid, and hit the comm console.

The vid screen unfolded, crackling and silver. She waited until the image resolved into Admiral Hackett, his face quarried with lines and as stern as she'd expected.

"Afternoon, sir," Shepard said.

"Shepard," he said, and nodded. "You're looking tired."

"It's the lighting in here."

"I received an interesting set of reports from Councilor Anderson," Hackett said.

"It's true," she said. Leaving her hands loose at her sides suddenly seemed to clumsy, too awkward, so she clasped them behind her back. "All of it. The numbers. The Reaper they were building. _How _they were building it."

"I read it, Shepard. I know."

"Okay," she said. "But I'm guessing you're not about to tell me that the rest of the Alliance believes it."

"Official position is that Reapers don't exist."

"That's bullshit. Sir."

Hackett's implacable expression did not waver. "Be that as it may, it won't change the minds of Alliance Command."

"I'm guessing they forgot that bit where Sovereign shredded the Citadel."

"That was one ship. One _ship_."

"Yeah, and me and my squad were the only lucky ones to hear the damn thing talk. I know." She reined back the surging, prickling anger. "Sorry, sir."

"Forgiven," he said, drily. "Good to see you're still stubborn as hell, at least. You ready to listen?"

"Yes, sir."

"We've got a deep cover operative in batarian space, and she's found herself on the inside of a batarian prison cell."

"How'd she manage that?" Shepard asked. "And what was she doing out there?"

"She was sent out to investigate something," Hackett said, and the corners of his mouth shifted into the beginnings of a smile. "Something that lead to an artifact that she and her team found. A Reaper artifact of some kind."

"Hah." Shepard grinned. Something very like exhilaration had its hooks in her, and she wondered just what else Hackett's operative might have stumbled onto. "Proof just waiting to be picked up?"

"Maybe," Hackett allowed. "We don't know yet. Our operative certainly believes so."

"And you want me to get her out of there."

"Yes. Get her out of that prison, and find out just what the hell it is she's dug up. This is going to have to be an infiltration," he added. "Quick and quiet and you'd better be certain you know how delicate this whole situation is before you get there."

"Yes, sir." She did not look away. "I'm listening."


	26. Infamy

_A huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story, or has it on favourites or alerts. Your support means so much. As always, Bioware owns nearly everything and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty-Six – Infamy**_

There were days, Shepard thought, when you really knew that everything had already gone to shit. And today – _with her comm systems blanked out, two nice smoking dents in her armour already, and Hackett's deep cover operative proving to be a little too attached to her project_ – was distinctly one of _those_.

Five hours ago, she'd inched her way through the grimy prison complex and stupidly, she'd assumed the tough part was over once she'd hauled Doctor Kenson onto the shuttle and punched the autopilot.

_"Okay." Shepard turned, still breathing hard. "You're alright?"_

_ Doctor Kenson nodded. She was wide-eyed and sweating and Shepard could see the shadows of exhaustion in her face. _

_ "Sit down," Shepard said, gentler. "I'll dig up some medi-gel, and maybe you can tell me about this artifact of yours."_

_ "Object Rho," Kenson said quietly. She sank onto the bench, her shoulders slackening. "It was…I don't know what it was. What it used to be. Or why it was there. We found it buried under the surface and it sang."_

_ "Sang?" Deliberately casually, Shepard knelt and flicked one of the supply lockers open. She reached in and asked, "Can you elaborate, Doctor?"_

_ "We cut the rock away from around it and it seemed to, I don't know. It seemed to _start_."_

_ "Go on." _

_ "It showed me things," Kenson said. _

Flames in engulfing waves and the terrible, shuddering sound of too much death all at once and filling her head _and Shepard understood. She'd found herself too close to that damn beacon on Eden Prime, God knew how long ago now. She'd stood in front of the beacon and it had opened itself up and spilled its searing, awful knowledge straight into her skull until her thoughts had drowned beneath the weight of it. _

_ "What kind of things?" Shepard asked carefully. She hooked up a packet of medi-gel and turned. _

_ "The Reapers," Kenson said, in the same soft tone. "The Reapers as they get here." _

_ "You're saying," Shepard said, and swallowed. _

_ "I'm saying that _this_ is where it will start. This is where they will come through." _

_ "You're certain?"_

_ "I've _seen_ it." Kenson's head lifted, her eyes wide and too bright. "I've seen it so many times." _

_ "Here," Shepard said, and pressed the medi-gel into Kenson's hand. "You're worn out and you look like you took a hell of a beating before I got there." _

_ Kenson's fingers snapped tight over the packet. "You believe me, don't you, Commander?"_

_ "Of course I do." _

_ Kenson's whole frame shivered as she exhaled. "Good. I knew you would, Commander. I hoped you would. You were there at the Citadel." _

_ "Yes, I was. Doctor," Shepard said, as delicately as she could. "How exactly have you and your team been studying this artifact?" _

_ "We've been careful," Kenson replied, and this time, her voice was slightly edged. "We've been as careful as we've needed to be. The artifact wasn't going to be useful if we'd just left it sitting there."_

_ "No, and I understand that. Can you tell me about any results you may have had?" _

_ Kenson smiled. "Yes, Commander. And that's very much why you're here now."_

_ "What do you mean?"_

_ "The batarians flagged our shipments to the asteroid. Maybe they even knew something about the artifact." _

_ "Doctor," Shepard said. She leaned forward, her hands flat on her knees. "I'm sorry. I know you've had a hell of a time down there. But you're jumping all over the place, and I'm only up to speed on what Hackett told me." _

_ "Of course, Commander. I'm sorry." Kenson's smile softened. "Come down to the asteroid base with me, and I'll show you our research." _

_ "Okay." Shepard nodded slowly. She was aware of the tight, sharp confines of the shuttle, and Kenson's unwavering gaze, and the needling knowledge that she _wanted_ the doctor's research to be perfect proof. _

_ She wanted evidence of past Reaper presence and coming Reaper presence and she knew that she was hurtling into it too quickly. She needed to settle her thoughts and the prickling, sour suspicion that Kenson's smile was still a little too fixed and start thinking her way through it properly. _

_ "You show me what your team has done, then," Shepard said. "And we'll talk about where to go from there."_

_ "Thank you, Commander." _

_ Shepard nodded again. She straightened up and turned towards the main console. She had both hands nearly to the glowing keyboard before Kenson asked, "Commander, what are you doing?"_

_ "Updating Hackett," Shepard answered blandly._

_ "Is that necessary?"_

_ "Old habits." Briskly, she tapped out the co-ordinates for Kenson's research base, another two hurried lines, and a final mention that she herself was still breathing. As fast, she copied the message to Joker before sending it off to Hackett. _

"_So, Doctor," she said, over her shoulder. "What did you mean about batarians flagging your shipments?"_

_ "I can explain better when we get there. When you see the base. But," Kenson added. "Now that we know where they'll come from, the Reapers. Now that we know, don't you think we should have a plan to stop them?"_

Shepard jerked back behind the corner again and swore. She gritted her teeth through the dull thud of another grenade going off, far too near.

She had four of Kenson's lackeys on the other side of the corner, at least three more on the far side of the high-roofed room, and the huge thrumming _thing _that was Kenson's Object Rho. It pulsed and crackled and every time its silvery light flared, Shepard wrestled with herself.

She wanted to _watch_ it. She wanted to watch it as it flickered into life, each lancing burst of light coming closer and closer together and measuring the distance to the Reapers.

The Reapers on the other side of the relay, and Kenson had called it the Alpha Relay, the gateway.

Shepard eased herself far enough out so that she could fire another volley. It was a distraction, most of it, the rattle and spread of the bullets enough to send the two men closest lurching back. She noted their weapons and their distance and others further behind, half-crouched.

_Of course, Kenson had also been talking through the bullshit veil of indoctrination_.

She counted herself through another four heartbeats and then she was moving again, leaning around and firing. Her first shot sent one of the men sprawling, his face a bleeding mess. The second drove into another, and he dropped lifeless, his hands loosening on his rifle. She waited an instance longer before launching forward again, clearing the space past the corner. Another desperate sprint took her further, sliding to her knees again beneath the rise of a console bank.

_"I'm sorry, Commander," Kenson said, still smiling. Still smiling that icy smile and suddenly Shepard knew she'd been right, she'd been right since she'd wondered at Kenson's strange stillness in the shuttle. _

_ "So," Shepard said. "I'm guessing that this isn't going to be easy after all?"_

_ "Commander, I can't let you stop them." _

_ "No," Shepard said. "I guess you can't." _

_ She saw the pistol in Kenson's hand, rising and unerringly steady, and she flung herself away. She reached up for her rifle in the same motion, clearing it from its harness and settling it against her shoulder. _

Shepard yanked a grenade from her belt – _almost the last, _she noted, _since she'd used three already, wildly and too fast _– and it arced up and across the room. Instinctively, she turned away from the rippling shudder as it hit the ground. As quickly, she rolled upright and fired, terse bursts that sent another two of them staggering. A follow-up shot ploughed through the second man's knees, and another toppled the first.

Desperately, she kept moving, vaulting past another glittering array of consoles. She was one target, horribly hemmed in by the room and the towering artifact, and she knew she needed to keep running.

_Keep to the walls_, she knew. Keep to the walls and the gaps between couches and desks and console screens and use _anything_ to ruin their sightlines. Every hurried, half-shielded step lent her the tiny, frantic instants she needed to gauge Kenson's guards.

_One by one_, she thought. Reduce them all to single objectives that could be taken down and she pushed off again, pelting past the last corner and back out into the open. Another grenade cleared the floor ahead of her. She bolted across, her shields soaking up the impact when one of Kenson's guards got off a shot that landed far too close. She crashed into the wall on the far side, dropping to her knees and glaring at her omni-tool.

New signals, too damn many of them, lighting up her screen and pouring into the room. She heard Kenson howling for more reinforcements, _more, as many as they had_, and Shepard wondered just where the hell they were coming from.

She flattened herself against the wall for a long, impatient moment. A spray of bullets bit into the wall on her left side, edging closer. She waited as long as she dared, aware of the salty taste of her own sweat, clinging to her lips. She rolled clear, unhooking her last grenade as she tumbled. Halfway to upright, she threw it. She turned, her shoulders already locked, and fired.

Her volley raked through three of the guards, and before they sprawled, she was already rushing past them. The shot she expected slammed hard against her back and she stumbled. Her shields buzzed out and she threw herself the last three steps until she was half-hidden behind the curve of a couch.

Skidding footsteps and the juddering flare of her omni-tool were her only warning before one of them lurched around the edge of the couch after her. She uncoiled to her feet and rammed the butt of her rifle against the guard's head. When he swayed, she cracked the weapon hard against his chin. Part of her registered the sharp sound of bone breaking, and the guard's whistling breaths, before she curled down onto her knees again.

She was _damned _if a room full of guards with their heads all one fire with Reaper thoughts was going to be the last battlefield she ever saw.

The artifact surged again, blindingly bright. Shepard ducked away from the punishing glare. Bullets ripped into the wall above her head and she lunged further. She jolted upright too quickly, and a ragged burst of fire toppled one of the guards. As wildly, she back-stepped and lined up a shot on the next.

A shot cracked into the back of her shoulder and she swayed. Her shields fluttered, and furiously, she thought, _not now, not fucking now_.

Another hail rattled over her head and she dropped, whirling herself around in the same motion. A roughly-aimed round took one of the guards off his feet, and another tore into the floor between the next two. She hurtled into the gap and spun, driving her elbow into a guard's throat. He swayed, and she turned her attention to the other. A solid kick scythed the guard's ankles out from under him, and when he collapsed, a burst from her rifle tore his throat open.

She turned, and staggered when one of the guards ploughed full-force into her shoulder. Fiercely, she wrestled to salvage her balance. From far too close behind, she heard the click and hiss of a pistol.

The bullet punched into the back of her calf, and the sudden, wrenching pressure of it made her cry out. Someone else's hands were scrabbling at her wrist, yanking at her rifle. Shepard snarled something and tried to lash out, but there were too fucking many of them and she knew damn well that if her knees hit the floor, they'd have her pinioned and useless.

She heard Kenson's voice again, cutting through the thunder of her pulse. Madly, she lunged for the pistol at her hip. Something cracked hard against the nape of her neck and she had time to swear before the darkness welled up and drowned her.

* * *

><p>Garrus leaned over the back of Joker's chair and glared at the main console. "That was it? No other updates?"<p>

"No." Tersely, Joker gestured at the screen. "It came in four hours ago, and there's been nothing since."

"I saw the mission briefing she thrashed out with Hackett," Garrus said. "It was meant to be a quick infiltration drop, then leave Doctor Kenson back with her people at the research base."

"Yeah, and I know that," Joker snapped. He rubbed one hand over the slightly crumpled back of his cap. "Sorry. It's just, you know. Not like her."

"Yeah," Garrus answered. His thoughts were darting madly, and he wondered if it'd be something stupid – _shuttle ran dry of fuel, power outage at the research base, maybe Shepard's omni-tool had finally breathed its last_ – but he'd _seen_ that first message. Concise and brisk and mentioning nothing more than Shepard's planned ETA at the asteroid, that she wasn't hurt, and that Doctor Kenson was either damn smart or damn strange.

"And, yes," Joker added. "I keep trying to get through. Nothing."

"Did you hail the base itself?"

"Yeah, twice. First time I got some guy saying there'd been no shuttle arrivals he was aware of. Second time I got a bunch of static."

"Yeah, and that's not suspicious at all," Garrus muttered.

"Could be nothing."

"Which is why you're as prickly as I am right now," he said, pointedly. He straightened up, his gaze still pinned on the screen. "Take us in to the research base."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure," Garrus said fiercely.

"Good, then you can be the one to argue with the XO about making decisions when the Commander's off-ship."

Garrus barked out a laugh. "Happily."

"Okay," Joker said. "EDI?"

"Yes, Jeff?"

"Can you try and get through to Shepard again? Try and dig your way around whatever they're scrambling the base comms with?"

"Of course."

EDI's blue sphere winked out again, and for a long moment, Garrus stared at the console, still unhelpfully unchanging. Joker was still looking at him – hopefully, Garrus noticed, with the tension at the corners of his eyes slackening slightly – but all his mind uselessly served up was Omega.

_Corridors heavy with silence and one more mistake after another and again until his hands were shaking and his mouth tasted like it was full of copper. _

"Okay," Garrus said, and forced himself to unlatch his hands from the side of the chair.

"Next step?"

"Next step, I'm going to go hunt down some volunteers," he said, and flared his mandibles into a grin. "Ask everyone into the briefing room for me."

"Whatever you need," Joker said. Slightly awkwardly, he stood, his hands sliding against the console. "Hey, Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Go find her."

"Soon as you can fly us there," he flung over his shoulder. He strode out into the main walkway and a handful of anxious minutes took him through the far corridor and into the briefing room. He waited, his fingers drumming at the edge of the table, until the others filed in.

"Our situation is this," he said, and stared at the blank white of the wall between Taylor and Jack. "Shepard's dropped out of communication."

"Yeah," Jack said, and for once, Garrus was damn glad she'd opened her mouth. "That part we know. What's your issue?"

"They've got a Reaper artifact down there," he answered. "I think I'm going to go right ahead and decide that something's gone horribly wrong."

Lawson's blue eyes narrowed and fixed on him. "Perhaps."

"The research base is blocking incoming communication."

"Blocking it, or unable to talk from their end either?"

"You really want to debate this?" Garrus demanded. "It's simple. She went down there on a solo infiltration assignment. She's hours overdue and I am not letting this ship sit here while we wait for her to do all the work from her side of this."

"Alright," Tali said, and stepped forward. She rested her hands on the table and added, "We can work on the comm problem on our way in."

"Yeah. We've got EDI thinking her way through that as we speak."

"Then," Tali said, and he thought he could hear her smiling. "I guess I'll be most use down by the drive core. I'll keep up with EDI's progress and we can go from there."

"Yeah. Thanks," Garrus said, and the sharp, wary heat of something very like exhilaration curled through him. "I need a couple of volunteers."

"Knew that part was coming," Jack remarked, and grinned.

"Yeah, well. I have no intention of turning a rescue into a complete screw-up unless I really have to."

Jack laughed. "A rescue, huh. I'll _pay_ you to say that to Shepard's face."

"Whatever it takes," Garrus retorted. "You in?"

"Yeah, okay, Vakarian. I'll be there."

Garrus opened his mouth to say something sardonic in response, but Taylor shifted, unfolding his arms.

"Okay," Taylor said, and shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I didn't have anything else planned for today."

"Good." Garrus straightened up. He was aware of the sped beat of his own heart, and the strange charged silence that caught his voice. "Get yourselves geared up. XO?"

"Yes?" Lawson responded, icily bland.

"I'll be updating Admiral Hackett as to our movements."

"Meaning you'll be wanting me to do the same from here," she said, in the same unreadable tone.

"Yes."

"So this is an Alliance mission," she said, and for the briefest, angry instant, Garrus wished he knew how the hell he could get beneath the blank mask of her expression.

"It's Hackett's info, and Hackett's operative," he said. "He came to Shepard with this, so he needs in on our progress."

"Alright," Lawson said. She tilted her head to one side. "Be careful with the ship."

"If this goes right, it's not the ship that's going to be shot at."

"You never know," Lawson muttered, and surprised him when she smiled. "Keep me informed, Vakarian."

* * *

><p>The <em>Normandy<em> swung around the side of the asteroid, tiny and uneven and with the research base spreading silver and bare across the ochre rock. Beneath Garrus' feet, he felt the thrum as the engines settled.

"You know," Joker said, and he didn't look away from the open cockpit screens. "Is it just me, or is this thing moving? And I mean moving like it shouldn't be."

"Yeah," Garrus answered, and frowned. "It's not just you."

"And you know what else is really weird?"

Garrus thought of half a dozen things, shoved back the instinctive need to snarl something, and shrugged. "You tell me."

"That's the system relay," Joker said, and gestured. "Or it should be, if it wasn't hidden by this pretty little asteroid."

"Oh," Garrus said, and swallowed. Sudden, awful certainty hooked itself in his gut, painful and impatient. "_Shit_."

"Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing."

"ETA?"

"Us or the asteroid?"

"Funny, Joker. Really funny."

"You see me laughing?" Joker scrubbed a hand across his face. "Few minutes. I'm going to take you over that big nice open area near the edge."

"Okay." Mechanically, Garrus checked his weapon harness, and the buckles on his chestplate, and the comms inside his helmet. "Stay in touch."

"Officer Vakarian?" EDI asked, and the blue globe snapped into life above the console.

"Yeah, EDI?"

"The connection is poor, but I believe I have found Commander Shepard."

"Put us through," Garrus snapped. Awkwardly, he added, "Sorry."

"Putting you through, Garrus," EDI said, mildly admonishing.

The comm unit crackled uselessly for a long, dragging moment. He wanted to shout at it, at EDI, at the unhelpful silence of the cockpit, _anything_.

"_Normandy_? Joker, can you hear me? Tell me you can fucking hear me?"

"We hear you," Garrus replied, and the relief surged through him. She was alive, and sounded damn furious, and still had time to swear, which he guessed meant she might've hidden herself somewhere. "Shepard?"

"God almighty, Garrus," came the uneven, ragged response. The static swirled up again before he heard, "Good to hear your voice."

"You too," he said. "You okay?"

"One hell of a fucking headache."

"What happened?"

"They knocked me out and sedated me."

"What?"

"Yeah, this is going to be one of those things where you're going to have to just listen and I'll explain everything later."

"You mean like usual," he said before he could think better of it.

She laughed, and it sounded breathless and half wrung through. "Kenson's dead. The asteroid's heading towards the fucking relay." She said something else, swallowed by static and the gulping, rough sound of her breathing. "Warn the colony. Aratoht. Throw them repeat messages, wave flags at them, I don't care."

"Okay," Joker said. "And if they won't listen?"

"Don't care, keep talking. If you get even half a ship-load of them away in time," Shepard said, and the rest of the words crackled apart.

"Shepard?" Garrus snarled. "_Shepard?_"

"Still here."

"We're coming," he said, fast enough that his tongue slipped awkwardly against his teeth. "Stay breathing. We're coming."

"You'd better," she answered, and the roar of the static engulfed her voice again.

The sudden, empty silence from the comm unit slammed into him, and angrily, he shoved away from the console. "Heading into the CIC," he said. "We'll be in the airlock on your mark."

"Yeah," Joker answered, and his gaze was fixed on his own hands as they darted across the glow of the screens. "I'll keep you updated."

"Good," Garrus said. He made himself clip Joker's shoulder – _very gently, gently enough that he saw Joker's expression soften slightly_ – and then he was turning away and striding down the walkway.

He made it through the first archway fast enough to kick his pulse-rate a fraction higher. He paced around the side of the constellation charts and discovered Taylor and Jack, both of them already poised and waiting.

"You heard?" Garrus asked.

"Yeah," Taylor replied. "Sounds like it just got interesting."

Garrus snorted. "Of course it did. So," he said, and looked up in time to meet Jack's questioning gaze. "What's persuaded you to come out and play? The goodness of your heart?"

"That and the fact that you'd be a damn sad sight to see, turian. You know, if you never got laid again."

Garrus coughed, and it turned into a desperate, gasping kind of laugh. "Yeah, that too."

* * *

><p>Shepard dropped to her knees, gritting her teeth as she felt the thump of the explosion, rippling through the ground. The dreadful screeching sound of the mech as it fell followed, and when she checked the wide plaza behind, nothing moved. She waited through another terse, dragging instant, her eyes on her omni-tool.<p>

_ A handful of grenades yanked off a dying guard and the blissfully open space of the base's open-air level and she'd worked her way through them. _

She straightened up a little too gracelessly, and checked the distance to the main comm station. Beneath her armour she was a mess of bruises and more than a few long scrapes from a brief, bitter scrap in the medbay on her way back out. The hole in the back of her calf was half-patched, but she could feel the sting of it, and she was aware of the uneasy knowledge that her whole leg was _giving _too much when she ran.

She crossed the last few empty metres and slammed both hands against the comm station. The screen unfolded and desperately, she thumped it again.

She was _almost_ surprised when the holo-display uncoiled and _kept uncoiling_ until it was above her, framing something that was all slanted hull and claws and clustered yellow lights.

"Well," Shepard muttered. "Shit."

The thing above her paused – _not really there,_ she thought frantically_, not really there, the bastard was somewhere else and it wasn't here_ – and she could have sworn it was studying her.

"Shepard," the thing said. "You have become an annoyance."

"Good," she snapped. "And fuck you too."

"You fight against inevitability," the Reaper said, in heavy, precise tones that hit her like a punch to the throat. As slow and as patient as Sovereign had been, and some awful part of her wondered what _this one_ had seen before it had retreated back into dark space.

_How many years it had existed_, _watching the turning of the stars. _

"Dust struggling against cosmic winds," the Reaper said. "That is all that you are."

"Do you all sit around planning which poetic scary thing to say? Or is more of a spur-of-the-moment thing?"

The golden blaze of its eyes fixed on her – _when had she started thinking that they had eyes? _ - and she clamped her fingers against her palms. It had the _same _damn voice, the voice that had been torn from the mouths of so many fucking Collectors, all of them wrapped in crackling shadow and all of them the same.

The Reaper said something else, something about numbers and death and her name again, but she was looking down at her omni-tool as it flashed. She edged away from the comm station, and the Reaper's voice drove into her.

"This is not a victory," the Reaper said. "This is only failure."

"Keep telling yourself that," Shepard snarled. She whirled, and when the _Normandy_ swung into the emptiness above, she found herself grinning, too wide and almost painfully.

She pushed herself into a loping run, her gaze pinned on the airlock door as it slid open. The _Normandy_ slowed, tilting elegantly to one side, rolling the airlock door closer. She noticed Garrus first, clad in blue, Taylor and Jack on his left side.

"Shepard," Jack shouted, her lips moving behind the clear panel of her mask. "You got company."

"I see them," she responded. Another desperate few steps carried her across the ground and behind the silver arch of a pipe. She crouched, her hands tightening on her rifle. "Clear me some room?"

A heartbeat later, she heard the whiplash surge of biotic energy. A hail of gunfire followed, and Garrus snapped, "Shepard, we're out of time here."

"Stay there and keep me covered," she told him firmly. "I'm coming to you."

"Got it."

She inched half a pace further and leaned as close to the far edge of the pipe as she dared. Another swirl of blue energy battered across the guards closest, and two behind dropped nervelessly, their helmets shattered. A scything volley swept another four to their knees, and Garrus shouted at her to move, and _right now_.

She launched upright and out of cover in the same motion. The sleek shape of the _Normandy_ blocked the sky overhead, and she could see the edge of the airlock. Above her, Taylor crouched and fired, and the bullets tore past her.

"Garrus," Shepard said sharply, and drove one foot against the curve of the pipe. The impetus sent her into the suffocating, airless press of the sky. He dropped to his knees, leaning out of the airlock until Taylor caught his shoulder, steadying him. On his other side, Jack hurled a sputtering tangle of wild energy, white-edged and furious.

His hands closed and locked over her wrist and then he was hauling her up and over the edge and onto solid floor.

"Joker," Taylor snapped. "We're in. Get us moving."

"Gladly," Joker answered.

Shepard let herself sink uselessly against Garrus, half aware of the roar of the ship as it tipped level. The engines kicked into gear, and thankfully she knew it meant the asteroid was falling behind.

"Shepard," Garrus said, and jostled her upright. "Stay with me."

"The airlock trick," she replied, and fumbled for the back of her helmet. "Never fails."

"Came close," Jack muttered. "How many guards did you have on your ass?"

"Didn't stop to count them. Did you see my other visitor?"

"Yeah," Jack said, and her eyes flickered. "Sounded like that bastard who called himself Harbinger."

"The very same." Shepard wrestled her helmet off, too aware of the sweat that slicked her hair. She keyed the inner door open, and her next step turned into an ungainly stumble. "Oh, hell. That's not good."

"You're a wreck," Garrus said mildly, and caught her arm.

"Yeah, thanks," she responded, and couldn't even quite muster up the right sardonic tone.

"Let's get you into the medlab," he said. "And get your armour beaten back into shape. Or just burn it. Whichever."

Vaguely, she nodded. "Priorities."

"Yeah." He let go of her long enough to tug his own helmet off and suddenly, finally, she was looking up into his face, all angles and fierce blue eyes.

"The colony," she said, because she knew she had to. Because she knew the answer, and she knew it would be small numbers if any, and because she knew the asteroid was spinning its inexorable way towards the relay. "Did you get through?"

"We tried," Joker answered, slowly. "Sorry, Commander. I can give you a rundown later. I've still got numbers coming in. It doesn't look good."

"Okay. Okay, Joker. Thanks."

"Hey," Garrus said, very softly, almost as if they were alone. Almost as if they weren't standing in the archway to the CIC, with her armour stinking of blood and smoke and this clawing, stupid failure filling her thoughts.

_Kenson and the asteroid and the fucking colony and _why_ hadn't she seen through it sooner? _

"No," she said, heavily. "I'm not okay. That really didn't go the way I thought it would."


	27. Duty

_Firstly, many apologies for the delay between chapters - real life and studying got in the way for a while. As always, thank you so much to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty-Seven – Duty**_

Garrus sat in the bright quiet of the medbay, his elbows braced on the edge of one of the beds and aware of Doctor Chakwas' patient, unruffled presence as she moved.

"Well, Commander," Chakwas said drily. Her hands dropped to Shepard's bare calf, half-healed and blotchy with bruising. "I think I can honestly say this is the first time I've seen this particular type of damage on this particular six-inch square of skin."

"Thanks. I think." Shepard's face lifted, slightly tense while Chakwas explored the wound. "Garrus Vakarian, you're laughing at me."

"Not at all," he replied. "It's just usually me that gets to be lucky and have shrapnel picked out of interesting places."

"True," Shepard said, and grinned. She was holding his hand, the soft underside of her thumb running in idle circles across his palm.

"Commander," Chakwas said. "Any idea why Kenson's team made a halfway decent attempt to patch you back up?"

"The sweetness of their hearts?" Shepard shrugged. "I don't know. I know I must've gone down like a sack of shit in front of their pretty little artifact. I woke up in their medbay, and they'd been kind enough to leave me my armour and my weapons. Not kind enough to clean them, though."

"Inconsiderate," Garrus remarked wryly. "Why, though?"

"Maybe I wasn't meant to wake up that soon."

"Yeah, I get that."

"And yeah, I'd've put a bullet through my head just to make sure," Shepard allowed, and shot him a smile. "That's one of those things that's okay to say if I say it."

Garrus laughed. "Fair enough."

"Alright," Chakwas said, and straightened up. "Go easy on that leg today."

"Thanks, Doc."

"And _try_ not to grace me with your presence for a while, Commander. I insist."

Shepard wobbled herself upright, each movement strained and slightly awkward. "Insistence noted, Doc. Thanks."

Chakwas' mouth softened into a smile. "You're welcome."

Shepard gripped the edge of the bed, her hands spreading pale at the knuckles. She looked too damn exhausted, Garrus thought, and before he could think better of it, he had his arm under one of hers, propping her up as her feet hit the floor.

"Thanks," Shepard murmured, softly. "You're not on duty right now, are you?"

"After I heroically covered you from the airlock? I think that gives me the rest of the day."

"Sounds like a plan." She leaned into him for a long, wonderful moment, her hair dragging against his chin.

"Commander," Joker said, his voice echoing through the medbay's comms. "You alive in there?"

"I'm alive," Shepard responded. "Is this serious?"

"Admiral Hackett wants to talk to you."

"Tell him I'll be up in my quarters in two minutes. You can put him through there."

"Sorry, Commander," Joker said, and Garrus heard the tired burr in his words. "He's requesting permission to come aboard."

"Like he knows I can say no," Shepard muttered. She smiled then, crookedly. "Tell me he's not haunting my airlock as we speak."

"Not that I'm aware."

"Good. Tell him yes, and send him into the briefing room."

"Right away."

"Hey," Shepard said, and bumped the side of her head against Garrus' shoulder. "You mind playing catch-up later?"

He nodded slowly. "What are you going to say?"

"The worst part," she said, quietly. "The truth."

* * *

><p>Shepard wrestled with the buckles on her boots and tried to ignore the accusing flash of the console screen. The screen and its message that Hackett's ship had docked and she knew she had to get herself down to the briefing room and at least <em>pretend<em>.

_Except_, she thought, _this was Hackett and she knew damn well he'd see clear through her bullshit. _

She straightened up and loitered long enough to glare at the small mirror in the bathroom. She dragged a comb through her hair until the thick, dark strands were settled into place. She lasted another impatient moment before she raked her fingers through as well, mostly out of habit. She checked her belt and the folds of her shirt, silently berated herself for behaving like a terrified recruit caught out during inspection, and strode out and into the corridor.

The scant minutes in the elevator tamed the urgent apprehension that had lodged in her chest. When she stepped into the briefing room, she found Hackett leaning over the table, his eyes pinned on a glowing holo display of the ship.

"Nice ship, Commander," Hackett remarked, without lifting his head.

"Thank you, sir."

"How are you feeling?"

"Better, sir."

He looked up, and the sudden, scrutinizing intensity of his gaze swept over her. "Tough mission?"

Shepard linked her hands behind her back. "I think the technical term is clusterfuck," she answered, deliberately bland.

Hackett snorted. "Yes. I saw the numbers Moreau pulled from the colony."

"And?"

"And I think you did the best you could."

"Yeah," she said, viciously. "Between that and the asteroid. And the Reapers."

"You stopped them. I'd call that a victory."

"Every other batarian still left in the galaxy won't."

"No," Hackett said heavily.

"And the Alliance?"

"I'd say that since you did this from inside a Cerberus ship, then no, Alliance Command won't look favourably upon your actions." One side of his mouth moved. "But then I'm not sure that this is a Cerberus ship anymore, Commander."

"Okay." Slowly, Shepard nodded. She was aware of the strange friction in the silence between them, in the way he was still leaning onto the table, in the way she was standing too rigidly. He was _negotiating_ with her, she realised, negotiating with halfway true words that weren't _really_ giving her anything, as if she was someone he didn't know. "Sir?"

"Yes?"

Helplessly, she shrugged. "Tell me where you're going with this."

"Whatever else happened out there, you stopped the Reapers."

"This time," she snapped.

"Which is why you need to get yourself in front of Alliance Command and talk about it. Talk about the asteroid," Hackett said. "Talk about the Collectors. Every piece of evidence you've picked up. Everything."

"And if I say I'd rather do it on my terms and in my own time?"

"Then I'd have to say you've spent the better part of a year liaising with Cerberus."

"Fair enough," Shepard said, and mustered up a venomous grin. "Though you must've missed that part in my reports where I detailed just how many times I told them to go to hell."

"No, I noticed that part," Hackett said drily. "Shepard, this doesn't have to be as rough as you're trying to make it. Put on your dress blues and come talk to us."

"That'd be a nice thought. If I had any dress blues, that is. I'm pretty sure they got incinerated along with the original _Normandy_."

"Commander," Hackett said, resignedly. "You going to fight me every step of the way?"

"Only if I have to."

"You don't have to. But you know as well as I do, not everyone's as understanding as I am."

"Thanks, sir. So much." She rested her hands flat on the edge of the table. "Okay. Let's say I do this. How do we work it?"

"You'll come to Earth. I'll arrange for Councilor Anderson to meet you at headquarters." Hackett's face hardened. "I won't lie to you. You'll have to hand over the ship so Alliance personnel can go over it."

"Yeah. I understand." She stared at the back of her knuckles and counted the thin tracings of scars there. "And my crew?"

"They're your crew," Hackett said, and something in his voice eased slightly. "Alliance Command will want to see you and your ship. Everything else is yours."

"Alright. Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Of course."

"What do _you_ think?"

Silently, Hackett regarded her. "You're asking if I believe you."

"Yes, sir."

"I think you've seen things no one else has. You and this shipload of people you keep convincing to follow you around," Hackett said, softer. "I think you need to talk it through with Command."

"Yes, sir."

"Shepard," he said. Slowly, he stepped around the table. "Whatever they say to you, you've done well."

She smiled, properly, her lips stretching until it almost hurt. "Thanks, sir. I mean it."

"Of course you do. The Reaper."

"Harbinger," she supplied.

"Another charming name. You believed what it said?"

"I believe that they're still coming," she said fiercely. "I believe that all I've done is slow them down. That's all my failure down on that asteroid will prove. That they'll get here a little later."

Hackett's expression did not flicker. "Tell yourself that enough times and then work yourself through it, Shepard. Failure's part of the job."

"Yeah, I know," she said, and the words rushed out, tired and too quiet. "I know."

"What is it you need from me?"

"Sir?"

"I'll be sending my report of the relay incident to Anderson," he said. "I can't guarantee that I can have the whole of the Alliance turning and listening, but I can have the Fifth Fleet on alert. You have any recommendations, Commander?"

For a brief, lurching instant, Shepard's thoughts floundered. "Yeah," she said, to fill the sudden, expectant silence. "Double planetary defenses around Earth. Luna Base as well. Anything in the immediate system that can handle the extra weight. And grease their supply lines until they're running as fast as they need to."

"My thoughts exactly," Hackett said, and smiled slightly. "I won't be on Earth with you, Shepard."

"I'm sure I'll survive," she responded, almost automatically.

"You will. Shepard?"

"Yes?"

"Get through this," Hackett said roughly. "I think you're going to need to."

* * *

><p>Garrus loitered through all of half an hour in his quarters, stripping the grime and the scuffs and the dust from his armour. The inside of his mouth tasted like sweat – <em>his own or Shepard's and he thought of her in the medbay, the fight nearly beaten right out of her<em> - and he knew it was mostly in his head, but it didn't seem to matter how much water he drank.

He growled, low in his throat, and reached for clean fatigues. Ten minutes of indecisive wandering found him prowling into the armoury.

"Hey," Taylor said, from where he was leaning over one of the tables. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered. "No. Can't settle. Got anything for me to clean?"

Taylor smiled, gently, and motioned at the weapon rack on the far side. "Take your pick."

"Thanks." Feeling vaguely absurd, Garrus made his way to the other wall, and his gaze dropped to the first assault rifle. He lifted it off the rack and busied himself with a cloth and oil and almost frustratingly, Taylor stayed unobtrusively silent. He finished with the assault rifle, and the shotgun beneath, and the pair of heavy pistols below that.

Eventually, he shoved back up to his feet, and snapped, "I think I want to shoot something."

"Yeah. This ship should've come equipped with a decent range," Taylor said.

"Let the Illusive Man know the next time you check in with him, would you?"

Taylor laughed. "Not sure I'll be doing that any time soon. Want to sit down?"

"I think I'd rather pace until I annoy even myself." Even so, Garrus gave in, and sat. He stared down at his own hands and said, "You saw that thing down there? The Reaper?"

"Yeah," Taylor answered. He leaned against the bench. "Sounded different, coming from its own mouth."

"If it even has a mouth." Garrus dredged up a slow smile.

EDI's blue sphere flickered into life, and she said, "Commander Shepard would like to see you all."

"Already?" Garrus straightened up.

"Yes," EDI said. "In the briefing room."

"On our way," Garrus responded automatically. As quickly, he tidied the last bench, Taylor helping him with deft hands. Minutes later, he stepped into the impatient quiet of the briefing room and discovered Admiral Hackett still there, his shoulders stiff beneath the blue panels of his uniform.

Questioningly, Garrus looked at Shepard and tried to read her face, pale under the bright spill of the lights. Her hands were against the table, and her gaze was half on Hackett, and he wondered what they'd agreed.

"Good," Shepard said, when the door slid closed behind Tali. "There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it. We'll be pointing this ship at Earth, and we'll be doing it as soon as Admiral Hackett bids us farewell."

"Commander," Lawson said, and stepped forward. Her gaze jumped to Hackett, uncertainly, before she scrutinized Shepard again. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Anyone who wants to be dropped somewhere, you'll let me know, and we can make a stop for you."

The rigid tension in Lawson's frame eased slightly. "Alright. If that's your decision."

"It is," Shepard said, and Garrus thought he heard the heavy rasp of exhaustion in her voice. "Admiral?"

"Yes," Hackett answered, and nodded. As gravely, he added, "You've all done well. Your mission to take out the Collectors' headquarters has undoubtedly saved thousands of lives. Your work is appreciated."

"Thank you, Admiral," Shepard said. "Good to know we've been noticed by someone. You know where you're going?"

"I'm sure I'll find my way," Hackett said drily. "Keep in touch, Commander."

Shepard nodded, and Garrus noticed that she was smiling, faintly. The door closed on Hackett's heels, and almost immediately, Jack blurted, "Shit, Shepard. Did you just get me conscripted into the Alliance?"

"Not yet," Shepard answered genially.

"What is it that he wants?" Lawson asked.

"The ship," Shepard said bluntly. "The ship, and my reports, and me, to talk about them. That's it. Whatever else happens, I have to talk to Alliance Command and I am going to do it."

Lawson smiled. "Noted."

"Okay." Shepard leaned away from the table, her fingers hooking into her belt loops. "It's a fair way to Earth. Anyone needs to talk anything through with me, you know where you can find me."

* * *

><p>Garrus waited, his shoulders against the wall and his mind quite firmly <em>not<em> on what might wait for them on Earth. _Bureaucracy and too much damn red-tape, _he thought, before silently reminding himself that he was _not_ thinking about it.

They'd have to bludgeon their way through it, he knew, with words and good old-fashioned obstinacy and hope like hell that _someone_ listened.

"Hey," Shepard said, and she touched the side of his arm. "Where are you right now?"

"Imagining everything that could go wrong on Earth," Garrus admitted.

"That good, huh?"

He laughed. "Yeah. That good."

"So," she said, gently. She caught his hands, cupping them between both of hers. Her fingers felt small and soft as they slid between his. "I was thinking this might be the part where I ask you if you're coming to Earth with me."

"And I was thinking," he said wryly. "That you're an idiot sometimes. Of course I'm coming to Earth."

"Garrus." She smiled, her dark eyes lifting and fixing on him. "The Reapers are still coming."

"No work talk, Shepard."

She laughed. "You know they'll stonewall me. The Alliance, I mean."

He tilted his head to one side. "I'm assuming that's not a good thing."

Shepard grinned, and said, "No, it's not. Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I tell you something serious?"

Slowly, he nodded. "Captive audience."

"Don't promise me anything," she said, very quietly. "And _no_," she added, and grasped his chin. "I don't mean about us. I don't mean that. I mean, if there are things you need to do."

"This won't change," he told her fiercely.

"It better not," she said, and the rolling pressure of her thumb under his chin made him swallow. "I have plans."

"What kind of plans?"

"The good, right-now kind," Shepard said. "Come with me?"

Wordlessly, he nodded. They made it through the corridor, and into the CIC, and when the elevator door slid closed, his arms were full of her. He growled and dipped his face against her neck. Her hands were on his clothes, frantic and close to clumsy. She snapped open another buckle and yanked and then her hands were on _him_, urgent and coaxing.

Blindly, he stumbled out of the elevator with Shepard half wrapped around him. She was laughing, he noticed, laughing with her face buried against his shoulder. Somehow they staggered into her quarters and he spun her against him.

"Shepard," he said, his searching fingers already on her belt. "Slow down?"

"Yeah," she answered. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

She tugged him across to the end of the bed and he explored her, his hands finding the taut lines of muscle beneath her skin. She swung her legs across both of his until she was against him, warm and sliding. She turned her attention to the back of his fringe and the soft skin beneath his jaw before he felt the teasing dampness of her lips travel down his chest.

"Yeah," Garrus mumbled, and pushed his hands through her hair. "That slower thing."

"Changed your mind?" she asked, wickedly.

"A little," he said, and hauled her up and across his lap.

They struggled through another awkward, shuddering moment while he grasped at her hips and she flattened her hands against his shoulders. She sank onto him and he rocked up to meet her and he saw her mouth move, silently shaping his name. As tenderly, she rose and fell above him until his patience deserted him.

"Shepard," he said, and the jolting pleasure of it – of her, of both of them – almost ruined his voice.

"It's okay," she murmured.

He heard her laughing, and then she was pitching them both carelessly backwards. She hit the bed first, her legs lifting and locking around his waist in the same motion. Desperately, Garrus cupped his hands against the back of her knees and drove himself into her. Afterwards, she wouldn't let him go, and he found himself tangled up with her in the mess they'd made of the sheets.

"You know," he said, his head dropping against her shoulder, all sweat-dewed and shiny. "I think you might've killed me."

"Nah. That's what the next round is for," she replied.

Garrus laughed. "Nice."

"As always." She rolled away from him slightly, one hand reaching for a pillow. "It's not going to be pretty this time."

She meant Earth, and Alliance Command, and he could see how it was eating into her, how it was burrowing into every line and angle in her face. "I know," Garrus said, softly.

"All I've got are our reports, and our shiny pictures, and our evidence."

"You can always shout," he remarked.

She grinned, crookedly. "I will, I promise. Somewhere between trying to explain how I caused the deaths of who the hell knows how many batarians."

"Shepard."

"Sorry." She reached for him, the tips of her fingers trailing against his face. "I don't know what I thought going in. I guess I thought I'd get my hands on some nice handy evidence. Oh, and you know, not have to be standing on an asteroid with a nice up-close view of a relay."

"Yeah. That part was less fun."

"I wanted Kenson's evidence to be true. I wanted it to be true so much that I wasn't thinking clearly."

"You know," Garrus said. "The only thing you can do about mistakes is try like hell not to do them again."

"Yeah. I know."

"And easy to say from here, I know," he admitted.

"Doesn't make it any less true though." She sighed, and turned so that she was close enough to press her lips against his face. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For pulling me out."

"That's what I'm here for. Someone's got to save your ass, you know that."

Shepard laughed. "I could've made it."

"Sure you could," he said teasingly.

"Screw you, Vakarian."

"You already did that," Garrus said, and dodged the lazy, gentle swipe she aimed at him. He caught her against his chest, his fingers combing through her hair until he found the soft, strangely delicate place at the nape of her neck. "Shepard?"

She nestled herself into the slope of his shoulder, her weight settling over him in an easy, familiar sprawl. "Mmm?"

"Feels good," he said, breathing the words into her hair.

"Good," she murmured back to him. Her teeth brushed his shoulder. "Because I'm not moving."

* * *

><p>Four days later, Shepard surfaced from dreams of the Omega-4 relay, blossoming orange and red and vast and filling the space of the <em>Normandy<em>'s cockpit shields. She kicked the twist of the sheets away and stared down at her hands, slightly damp. Beside her, Garrus muttered something inaudible and shifted deeper between the pillows. She smiled, and very gently, she touched the closest bare patch of his shoulder.

The Omega-4 relay and the fucking Alpha relay and her thoughts were toppling against each other in the same haphazard, unhelpful way they had since Hackett had stepped off her ship.

Her ship that was half-empty and painted in the wrong colours and she _knew_ she had to stand aside and hand it over.

She'd farewelled Lawson on some no-name planet three days and a few systems back, and she'd stopped long enough to mention that Shepard had done fairly well.

_"All things considered?" Shepard retorted. _

_ "Of course," Lawson said, sharply. Her gaze swept Shepard again, unwavering and raking. "You know what you'll do?"_

_ "On Earth? Talk and talk some more. And then when the Reapers show their ugly faces, start shooting."_

_ Lawson smiled. "It's always that simple with you, isn't it?"_

_ "I like to think so," Shepard said, wryly. "Can I assume you'll be staying out of trouble?"_

_ "No promises." _

_ A day later, Taylor had done the same, asking for a drop-off and thanking her all in the same breath. _

_ "Got any plans?"_

_ "When I could be having much more fun just making it up as I go along?" Taylor grinned, slightly tiredly. He hefted his gearbag over one shoulder and added, "I don't know, Shepard. I'm thinking I might find out what else is going on. In Cerberus, I mean."_

_ "Then you'll need to be careful," she said. _

_ "Yeah, I know. I just figure we've been away from it for so long. Makes me wonder what we missed."_

_ "Yeah, I get that. After smacking the hell out of the Collectors, though, I don't think you need to go and walk into some friendly ambush set up by the Illusive Man." _

_ Taylor smiled. "It's you he's interested in, Shepard. Not me."_

_ "That makes me feel so much better," she said. "Take care of yourself."_

_ He shook her hand, and Garrus', and they watched until he vanished into the surging press of the crowd. _

Shepard glared at the clock and realised she'd woken early. She had time to get herself cleaned up and dressed and maybe even go and bother Joker before the last watch clicked over to the daytime schedule.

_And then they'd be almost to Earth_, she thought, and pushed back the clawing, uncomfortable apprehension.

_They'd be at Earth and she'd have to talk and they'd _have_ to listen. _

Mechanically, she padded across to the bathroom. Carefully, she slid the door closed, veiling the sudden spill of the light. She stood under the blast of the shower until the hot water blinded her, pouring in thick runnels over her half-closed eyes. As quietly, she mopped herself dry and made her way back into out into the cabin, the towel slung loosely around her shoulders.

She left the main lights off and found her fatigues – the cleanest set – where she'd left them hanging. She heard Garrus stir, and the drag of the sheets as he moved. Still, she sorted through the fatigues silently, and she could not quite hunt down the right words.

She should be _saying_ something, she thought. Something absurd and half-true about how it might be easier if she'd be allowed to keep her armour on. Something worse about how her mind wouldn't stop turning over and over, and how she wasn't _quite_ sure if she was going to be walking into the echoes of who she'd been or walking into an ambush.

She tugged her pants on first and snapped the clasps shut. When she reached for her belt, Garrus laughed, soft and low.

"What's funny?"

"That," he answered, and levered himself up on his elbows. "Is a good look for you."

Shepard smiled. She crossed the distance to the bed, and stepped into the inviting clasp of his arms. "Any other day I'd stay like this."

"I know." His forehead slid against hers. "A lot to get ready."

"Yeah." She shifted slightly, so that she could see his eyes. "You're worried."

"No, this is just how I look in the morning."

"Bullshit." She touched the markings that crossed the sharp lines of his face. "We're stuck in this together."

"I know," he said again. "It just seems all that much more serious now."

"Says he who saw Sovereign chew through the Citadel."

He bared his teeth in a sudden smile. "Well, when you put it like that."

"Yeah." She turned the side of her face against hers. For a terrible, wrenching instant, she wanted to do nothing but stay in the uncomplicated, sheltering warmth of the rumpled sheets and _him_.

"It's okay," Garrus said, rougher, his voice blurred with sleep or trepidation or something else. "Go talk to Joker. I'll find you later."

"You know me too well."

"That's why you like me," he retorted. He shifted, the sheets pooling around his hips. His hands ran down her sides, teasingly soft. "And get dressed. You're too tempting, standing around like that."

"And here I thought you liked it." She grinned and darted out of his arms. In three practiced, smooth motions, she had the vest on and the shirt over it.

"Why do I get the feeling that whatever I say to that is going to be wrong?"

She fussed over the last of the buttons. "Not at all," she said. "You know what's really stupid?"

"What?"

"I feel like that kid on the first day of bootcamp. The kid who tries so damn hard to make sure everyone can see him do the right thing and he still fucks it up."

Garrus' eyes glittered. "You were that kid?"

"Once," she said, and grinned. "Maybe."

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"You're hovering," he said pointedly.

"I know." She shifted her belt buckle a fraction to the left. "Find me in the CIC?"

"Thirty minutes."

In the elevator, she stared down at her boots, neatly fastened. She took the time to duck into the mess hall and find herself a clean mug and coffee before she strode out into the half-empty silence of the CIC. As brusquely, she made her way up to the cockpit, her gaze flicking across the star charts out of habit.

"None for me?" Joker glanced over his shoulder. "That's unfair _and_ cruel, Commander."

"Like you need any more caffeine. Even at this time of the morning."

"It's not morning," he shot back at her. "It's the never-ending night-time of space."

Shepard smiled. "Practice that one, did you?"

"On occasion. There's an even more poetic version, if you want to hear it."

"I'll pass, thanks."

"Your loss." He turned properly, leaning his chin onto one hand. "You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep," she admitted, and sipped at the coffee.

"Yeah. Me neither."

"You're on the red-eye watch," she told him. "You weren't meant to be."

"Yeah, that too."

"What's our ETA?"

"About fifty minutes," Joker answered, and his voice was as bland and forced and _grey_ as hers had been.

She nodded. "Thanks."

"Yeah." Joker scrubbed one hand across his face. "Been a while."

"Since what?"

"Since I saw the pretty blue skies of home."

"Yeah," Shepard said, softly. "You and me both."


	28. Divisions

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty-Eight – Divisions**_

Shepard heard the low-toned whirr as the landing ramp settled. The white spill of daylight through the gap followed, widening and fierce. She waited, squaring her shoulders beneath the immaculate folds of her shirt. She had Garrus and Joker behind her, and Chakwas behind them, and the rest of the crew on orders to sit and wait and behave nicely.

She crossed the slope and was out into the startling sunlight before she could think better of it.

_Home_, she supposed, as the air filled her mouth, cool and crisp and freighted with salt. Except, some cynical thought prodded, home had been colonies and ships and four-walled rooms and the _Normandy_. Earth was where they _said_ home was, all the time. It was a name, a marker, an emblem, a way of explaining what they _weren't_ as much as what they were.

She shoved back the sudden urge to lift one hand to cut the glare of the sun. Instead, she let her hands settle at her sides and paused. The landing zone was small and circular and ringed by ground staff, all of them armed and all them in Alliance colours.

_Her colours_, she thought, and swallowed. She gave herself the time to look across them until her gaze flicked to Anderson.

He was standing as composed and poised as she'd hoped. The small movement at the corners of his mouth eased some of the tension knotting her shoulders.

"Anderson," she said, mildly. "Good to see you."

"And you, Shepard."

He reached for her hand first, the strong clasp of his fingers reassuringly warm.

"This is quite the welcoming committee," she said.

"Yeah," Anderson said. "Sorry about that."

"So." She could feel the seeping warmth of the sunlight, sinking between her shoulders, where her weapon harness should've been. "How are we playing this?"

"Carefully," Anderson answered. "You ready?"

"Always ready," she replied, and the half-truth of it ran off her tongue too fast.

He nodded, clipped and precise, and when he turned, she followed him. Mechanically and briskly, she trailed him across the landing zone and through the ground staff and into the sweeping cool shadows of the main building. High and grey-walled and neutral as blank paper, and she wondered how long it had been, since she'd stepped inside.

This HQ or any other on Earth or any Alliance colony and stupidly, she thought of Elysium. She'd yanked together a stopgap resistance and come stumbling out of the rubble with a hole in her shoulder and the blurry, half-dazed awareness that you really _could_ take down a decent-sized gunship with a grenade and a handful of luck.

They'd dusted her off and taken her home and pressed a medal into her hand, and she remembered sitting in her quarters and staring at it.

_The blunt edges of it digging into her palms and if she tilted it slightly, she could almost see the ragged blur of her face in it. _

"Here, Shepard," Anderson said softly, jolting her out of her thoughts.

"Okay," she answered, automatically. She glanced up at high closed doors. "What's first?"

"You'll be debriefed, alone," Anderson said.

"The others?"

"Chakwas and Joker get to do their own talking."

"Okay," she said again, to fill the crawling silence. She was too aware of Garrus' tall, reassuring presence just behind her shoulder. "Let's get this over with."

She almost added something ridiculous, something about how she had little else on her agenda for the day, but Anderson swung the doors inward. Two steps took her across the threshold and the heavy, wordless impatience of the room assailed her. Part of her heard the doors clank shut on her heels. She noticed a dais and chairs and a long desk and half a dozen Alliance soldiers and even after she scrutinized them, she couldn't decide if she recognized any of them.

"Shepard," one of them said, flattening his hands on the desk.

"Yes, sir," she responded. _They weren't using her rank_, she thought, furiously. They weren't using her rank and they were looking at her like she'd just clambered out of her own fucking grave again.

"Do you want to sit down?"

"I'd prefer to stand, sir."

"Whatever you want." The Alliance officer's gaze flicked down to the desk again. He was wiry and impeccably clad in his blues, and she found herself wondering how he'd managed to draw the short straw and end up in here this morning. "We have your reports, courtesy of Councilor Anderson."

She nodded. The air against her lips was unmoving and dry.

"We'll start with some basic questions and then move on."

She nodded again, and battened down the vicious urge to snarl at him to hurry the hell up.

"Tell me about the condition of your ship."

Shepard blinked, and answered, "She's in need of a going-over. We patched her up after we came back through the Omega-4 relay, but there's more than a few systems in there that need a polishing."

"And Cerberus couldn't provide you with those funds?"

"Any connection I had with Cerberus ended after the Omega-4 relay."

"Why?"

"A difference of opinion," she said.

"Explain."

"I saw no need to keep technology that had been used to liquefy hundreds of thousands of human colonists. As I recall, it's in the reports."

"Yes," the officer said. "It is. Tell me about the Illusive Man. Who is he?"

"I don't know."

"You spoke with him?"

"Yes, I did. I spoke to him the first time via commlink from a Cerberus station. Somewhere near Freedom's Progress."

"And after that?"

"Always directly via the _Normandy _or remote vidcomm."

"Alright." The officer leaned back in his chair. "How is it you came to be in his employment?"

"It was a contract. A mutual agreement."

"And how did it start?"

_With fire and the ship breaking apart and the dragging breaths that had seen her wake on a table in a white room while she tried to remember how the fuck she'd managed to get herself there. _

"The _Normandy_ was attacked," she said. "Collectors."

"And you were picked up by Cerberus."

"Yes," she said. "I guess that's how it started."

* * *

><p>Garrus stared down the length of the corridor again and gauged the distance to the doors. She'd been inside for <em>hours<em>, and he wondered how many ways they were asking the same damn questions.

"Vakarian," Anderson said, and Garrus made himself look into the man's face, creased and tired. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he lied.

Anderson sat beside him, his hands folding over his knees. "And no, I don't know how long it'll take."

"There's a lot to get through," Garrus said.

"Yes, there is."

"Damn. And here I thought you'd tell me we'd have it all shelved and sorted in time for dinner."

Anderson snorted. "If only. She's been gone a long time."

"And wearing the wrong colours," Garrus snapped.

"The Cerberus connection can't be wished away."

"And what? Just ignore the other shit? The Collector base, the Reapers, the empty colonies?"

"Look," Anderson said, softly. "You and I both know the Reapers are coming."

"Yeah, and the Alliance needs to know that she isn't the bad guy in this. I _know_." Garrus clicked his teeth together. "Sorry."

Anderson shook his head. "No need."

"Thanks. Have I got time to go outside?"

"Sure," Anderson answered. "I'll have you called in when they finish."

"Yeah." Garrus shoved up to his feet. "Thanks for that."

Too quickly, he made it back out into the open air and stood, his hands clenching at his sides. He looked up at the clear blue bowl of the sky until some of the tension emptied from his shoulders.

It was the slow crawl of bureaucracy and he _knew_ there was no way in hell it was going to be over quickly. Not when the patient bastards inside had all the time they needed to comb through the information and try their damndest to hunt down gaps. Not, he thought uneasily, when it was likely to be an interrogation all wrapped up in politeness.

Still simmering, he strode down wide white steps and into the carefully-pruned green spread of a small garden. The vibrant surge of flowers spilled onto the pale squares of the ground. He noticed tiny star-shaped petals, deepest yellow, and the dense tangle of plants he had no hope of naming. Another few steps took him around the tall, rustling shapes of trees and into a walled courtyard. He discovered Tali, sitting on one of the white benches, with Jack slouching across from her.

"Garrus," Tali said, and beckoned to him. "Did you get lost by accident?"

"It was that or commit some kind of crime if I'd been made to wait inside any longer."

"How's she going?" Tali asked.

"It's taking a while," he said. Pale gravel crunched beneath his boots. "I don't know."

"She'll be fine."

"Yeah," Garrus replied absently.

He waited, his shoulders too tight and his gaze on the green leaves that curled behind the bench. Part of him heard Jack as she groused about the weather and the bright unchanging sky, and Tali's pointed response.

"Sit down," Tali said, and he yanked himself out of his thoughts long enough to realise she was talking to him.

"Yeah, sorry." Heavily, Garrus sank onto the bench. He flattened his hands over his knees and asked, "How'd it go on the ship?"

"Efficiently," Jack answered waspishly. "They just walked us all out. Very calm. Very quiet. Very Alliance."

"And the crew?"

"In custody," Tali said. Her head turned, and he thought he could see the faint, anxious angles of her face behind the glossy barrier of her helmet. "I'm worried, Garrus."

"About your crew?"

"Yes. All they were party to was fixing the ship."

"I know," he said. "They'll be alright."

Slowly, she nodded. "Yes. I hope so."

"The Alliance guys talk to you yet?"

"Not much," she admitted. "They were more interested in Ken and Gabby."

"They should've jumped two systems back," Jack muttered.

"Just because that's what you would do," Garrus retorted, but there was little sting in his words.

"Yeah. Because I'm not fucking stupid enough."

"Something like that." He stared down at his hands again, unhelpfully locked together. Tali's engineering kids – except, he thought, they weren't kids, and he wondered when _he'd_ started feeling so damn old – and he knew the Alliance would come down hard on them. They'd been on the _Perugia_, Garrus remembered, floating somewhere outside the Citadel while he'd been thinking of nothing but Saren, Shepard in front of him and his mind on fire with anger.

"You know I'm right," Jack said.

"Yeah. I know."

He'd stumbled into Donnelly in the mess hall, he recalled, in the middle of some pain-blurred early morning, too soon after Omega. One side of his head thumping with the slow pulse of his blood, and too aware of the clinging weight of the bandages, he'd sat with his elbows stiff on the table and seethed.

"_You were there, weren't you? On the Citadel?"_

"_Yeah," Garrus answered. "I was there."_

"_It was true, wasn't it? What the Commander said. About the ship."_

"_About Sovereign? Yeah. It's true." _

"What about you?" Garrus asked, and glanced at Jack again. "You been convicted of anything again yet?"

She grinned, all teeth. "I'm unaffiliated. No one cares about me."

"You say that like it's a good thing."

"It is a good thing, turian."

He made himself reply – something irreverent and sardonic – and when Tali spoke again, and Jack's attention swung away from him, he was almost grateful. He breathed slower, steadier until he stilled the incessant stampede of his own heartbeat. Impatience, he thought, was an easier beast to wrestle when you _knew_ there'd be the chance to pick up a gun at the end of it.

His omni-tool flashed, and he almost jolted upright.

"What is it?" Tali asked, her voice edged and tight.

"Anderson," Garrus replied. "They're tidying up."

* * *

><p>"Excuse me?" Shepard glared past the thundering of the blood in her ears. "Sir."<p>

"Hundreds of thousands of dead batarians is going to require an answer."

"Yes, I know. And I know that I've already explained that it was Doctor Kenson's decision to swing the asteroid towards the relay. That it was Doctor Kenson's team who worked on Object Rho."

"Yes, so you've said." The officer leaned back, his expression flat and unreadable.

"Yes, the Bahar system is gone," she said, and the words fell heavy and painful. "The relay was knocked out and I was there when it happened. I'm not denying that. I've never denied that."

Silence answered, dry and crackling and she wondered what else she could say. _What else they _wanted_ her to say_. The inside of her mouth was sandy and raw and she wondered how long she'd been standing here, standing long enough that the terse strain in her shoulders ached.

"Tell us about this Reaper you claim you spoke to."

"On the asteroid?"

"Yes," the officer said, blandly. "_That_ Reaper."

"It told me all I'd done was delay them coming. They'll still be here."

"And you believe this?"

"Of course I fucking believe it." The words fell stone-hard and furious into the maw of the silence. Unrepentant, Shepard added, "I've believed it since one of those Reapers flew straight into the Citadel."

"And how long did this Reaper suggest your actions had delayed them?"

Shepard bit back the sudden urge to snarl something vicious. "Strangely there was no time-frame shared. You _have_ to listen to me. They're coming and every day you make me sit here on my fucking hands, they're getting closer."

"The issue here is less something you claim to have spoken to and more your actions, both as part of Cerberus and on the asteroid."

Eschewing patience, she snapped, "Talk to Moreau. Talk to Chakwas. Talk to anyone you care to pull off my ship and ask _them_ what they've seen."

"In due time, of course."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that for now, you'll be placed under guard."

"For how long?" she demanded.

"We're not sure," he answered, in the same neutral tone. "Your ship will remain Alliance property."

"You're grounding me," she said furiously. "You're _grounding_ me?"

"Shepard, you have to understand our position." Over crossed hands, the officer added, "You've brought us a great deal of information."

"Thank you," she muttered acidly.

"Your reports will need time to be corroborated and questioned. We'll need you to speak with us again. I'm sure you understand."

"Oh, I understand."

"You'll be given the chance to address any accusations brought against you."

_Except this one_, she thought angrily. Except this one, the mire of questions and answers and they were still looking at her in the same blank, uncaring way, as if she might as well have kept her mouth shut and let them invent her side of it all.

"Alright," she said. "How official is this?"

"You'll be relieved of duty."

"Until?" she asked, and her own voice seemed to weave awkwardly through the fog in her head.

"We're not sure," he said again. "We expect your co-operation, Shepard."

"You'll get it."

"Alright. You're dismissed, Shepard."

"Thank you, sir."

Somehow she swallowed against the gnawing knot that had worked itself into her throat. As painfully, she turned. She made it to the doors and through into the corridor. The harsh spill of the lights hit her first, and then the noise of footsteps, and someone asking if she was ready to come with them.

"No, I," she said, and fought to find the right words. "Not yet."

"Shepard?"

Anderson's voice, she realised, and she looked past the guards until she saw him. Her gaze skipped to Garrus, standing braced beside him, and she almost froze.

"Not yet," she said again, sterner. "Give me a moment?"

One of the guards nodded slowly. "Go ahead."

"Shepard," Anderson repeated. "They say anything?"

"Relieved of duty."

Anderson's face crumpled. "I didn't," he said, and shook his head. "Shit."

"That was only round one," she said. "Apparently I get to stick around and talk about it some more."

"We'll get it worked out," Anderson said.

"Yeah." She dredged up a smile. "We will."

Anderson nodded, and as briskly, he stepped past her, gesturing the guards away slightly.

"Garrus?" Shepard asked, very quietly.

"I'm here," Garrus answered, fiercely enough that her stomach lurched.

"Yeah," she murmured. "I can see that." Clumsily, stupidly, she caught at his hands, pressing her palms against his. His fingers locked through hers, long and wiry and strong. "Okay?"

"Not at all," he said.

"I know."

"Shepard."

"Yeah." She made herself look up and into his face. She thought she could see shadows in his eyes. "You know something?"

"What?"

"You see a Reaper first, you shoot the bastard, _then_ you brag to me about it."

Garrus laughed, falteringly. "Sounds like a plan."

"You know something else?"

"Yeah," he replied. "This could take a while to get sorted."

"Yeah, it could."

"I could stay," he said.

"No. You shouldn't. I mean," Shepard said, and swallowed. "You could. I don't mean that I don't want you to."

"I know what you mean," he told her. His voice was low and rough and some terrible wrenching part of her wished she'd never pointed the _Normandy_ towards Earth.

"Shepard," Anderson said, behind her. "I'm sorry, but we need to go. Now."

"Yes, I know." The words dried up in her throat, tight and swollen and painful. "Garrus?"

"Yeah," Garrus said, softly. "You'll be fine."

"Will you?"

"Course I will."

"You'd better," Shepard said.

She unlatched her hands from his, slowly, so that the slide of his fingers eventually gave way to emptiness. She looked at Garrus, unwaveringly and desperately until she had to turn, until she was striding between the guards. Shoulders rigid, she kept her gaze pinned on the livid blur of the lights as she walked away from him.

* * *

><p>The door slid open, and Garrus trailed Anderson into the cramped white confines of the office.<p>

"Vakarian," Anderson said. "Sit down."

He almost didn't want to – he wanted to pace, until the coiling impatience in his muscles faded – but he needed Anderson listening, so he chose the chair across from the neatly-arranged desk and sat.

"Okay," Anderson said. "Talk to me."

"You let her do the dirty work, and when she has the bad grace to come back alive, you lock her up."

"You think I'd rather she _hadn't_?" Anderson demanded. "Vakarian. Shepard's done so damn much on my say-so that I'll be hating it, the day she walks out and never comes back."

"This could've been handled better."

"How?"

"I," Garrus said, and shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. I want to say that you could've just let her walk back onto the _Normandy_."

"No. She's done too much." Anderson's voice sharpened. "I pushed her into Spectre candidacy, for God's sake. You really think I don't care?"

"No," Garrus admitted. "I guess I don't think that. Which I guess means that we're actually agreeing with each other."

"Yes. What do you need from me?"

"Apart from the impossible?"

Anderson smiled, a small, tired movement at the corners of his mouth. "Apart from that."

"What kind of timeframe are we looking at?"

"Honestly? I have no idea. Day after tomorrow, I'm heading back to the Citadel. Any decision made by the Defense Committee will come to me first."

"As a courtesy?" Garrus asked, slightly sardonic.

"Essentially, yes."

"You actually got an opinion on how they'll decide?"

"Meaning you want me to lie to you now?"

"Okay," Garrus said, heavily. The silence pressed in on him, and when he swallowed, his mouth felt full of sand. "Okay. I get it. We wait."

"You want me to get a message to her?" Anderson asked.

Garrus' head jerked up. "You'd do that?"

"I'm asking, aren't I?"

"Tell her," Garrus said, and the words died on his tongue.

"Here," Anderson said, and handed him a slim datapad. "You got two minutes, Vakarian."

He nodded slowly. His fingers skidded clumsily against the glowing keypad. Three lines, and he _knew_ she'd understand – understand what he meant, and understand what he meant beneath the bare, empty shape of the words – but his pulse wouldn't steady itself until after he passed the datapad back.

"Alright." Softer, Anderson added, "Anything else I can do?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered. He dug his fingertips against his knees and asked, "Can I see Moreau?"

"Joker? Of course. He'll be staying on-base, as far as I'm aware, until the _Normandy_ gets pulled by the retrofit team."

"Okay. Thanks, Anderson."

"You're welcome. Vakarian?"

Garrus paused, halfway out of the chair. "Yeah?"

"Joker's outside," Anderson said blandly. "If you want to catch him before he comes back in."

"Thanks."

Garrus loitered long enough for directions to another courtyard, and another garden, and then he was striding away. Outside, he thought, where the air was stirred by the wind and the swaying trees and the surveillance coverage was likely to get worse as the greenery got prettier.

Ten minutes and more than one sidelong glare at his omni-tool took him between high white walls, heavy with glossy foliage, and into a tiny enclosed square, ringed with trees.

"Christ, Garrus." Sitting awkwardly, his shoulders against the far wall, Joker scowled. "You move that quietly just to scare the living hell out of me?"

"Sorry."

"You are not." Joker's expression relaxed slightly. "You heard?"

"I heard. Anderson tell you?"

"Yeah. Relieved of duty. Shit."

"Shit indeed."

"Weird, isn't it," Joker said, musingly. "You tell yourself you live on a ship, and then the first thing you do is hide somewhere green."

"It's not weird." Garrus hesitated a moment longer. Mostly to distract himself, he reached out and touched the brown, gleaming curve of a branch. "The ship okay?"

"Was when I left." Joker smiled, and added, "I'll be going aboard with the retrofit team."

"How'd you swing that?"

"Anderson's recommendation. Can't say that anyone's really going to listen to me. It's more about, ah," Joker said, and rubbed one hand over the back of his cap. "Showing them the ship. The upgrades. The systems."

"All going to behave?"

"Yeah," Joker answered, and his smile turned slightly sly. "I think so."

Garrus laughed, uneven and sudden and startling himself. "Glad to hear it."

"What's your plan?"

"I don't know," he said, honestly. "I don't know. Right now I think I want to sit here and wait it out."

"But?"

"Who said there's a 'but'?"

"Your face does," Joker said pointedly.

"Yeah, well. I don't know. I think I might be more use somewhere else." He exhaled, slowly, and the dragging uncertainty swelled up again. He pushed his tongue against the back of his teeth and added, "I don't know."

"You know, I never quite thought this far ahead," Joker said, softly. "Not really."

"Coming back here?"

"Yeah. After what happened," Joker said, and stopped.

"Yeah," Garrus said, because he couldn't think of anything else to say, anything that wouldn't be fucking useless. "I know."

"You saw her in there?"

"Yeah."

"Was she okay?"

"You know Shepard."

"Jesus," Joker snapped. "That's not an answer and you know it."

"I know," Garrus said. He was too aware of the strange, unfamiliar sound of the trees, rustling as the wind plied through the leaves. "She'll be okay."

"That really what you think?"

"No," Garrus replied. "It's just what I'm hoping."


	29. Partings

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's keeping up with this story. Bioware owns nearly everything.  
><em>

_**Chapter Twenty-Nine – Partings**_

The sound of the door sliding open jarred Shepard from her thoughts. She dragged her gaze from the grey walls and found herself looking at Anderson as he hovered, not quite inside the small room.

"Social visit?"

"Something like that," he answered. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm always mild-mannered and happy, you know that."

Anderson snorted. "And you really think?"

"That they've fucking grounded me because they don't know what the hell to decide."

"I'm not disagreeing."

"Christ, Anderson. I think I hate everything right now." She sank down onto the bunk. "No offence."

"None taken," he answered drily. "Here."

"What?"

"This," he said, and pressed a small datapad into her hands. "Read it."

She scowled and looked down at the screen. Short words and three lines and suddenly her stomach was all full of lurching, painful exhilaration. "Garrus," she said, almost silently. "You talked to Garrus?"

"Yeah," Anderson said pointedly. "Seems he was as pissed off about you being in here as you are to be here."

"Yeah, well. We knew we'd be back here at some point. The part I'm still stuck on is the locked door. And that bit where they took my rank off me."

He must have heard the sudden, raw uncertainty in her voice. His face softened, and wordlessly, he made his way to the narrow window that broke the severe grey lines of the far wall.

"Sorry," Shepard muttered. "Been a long day."

"It's alright. Take your time."

She dug her fingertips against the datapad and stared at the screen again.

_Tell them what they need to know. Keep telling them until they damn well start listening._

_We'll get through this. _

"So, Anderson," she said, a little hesitantly. "Can I ask a favour?"

"A message back to Officer Vakarian?"

"That transparent, huh?"

"You have no idea."

"Thanks," she said wryly. She tapped out a reply, and her gaze stayed on the livid shape of the words too long. "Okay."

"Shepard." The bunk shifted under his weight as he sat. "This isn't forever."

"I know. I'm just not convinced the Reapers care how long I get made to sit here."

"I hear that," Anderson said. "I'll be keeping you updated of anything I notice."

"Anything?"

"Anything strange."

"The lives we lead," she remarked drily. "Take care of yourself."

"You too, Shepard."

He clipped her shoulder lightly, and she pressed the datapad into his hands, and seven steps later, he was out of the room – the _cell,_ she thought, it was a fucking _cell_ – and she was staring at the wall again.

She quartered the floor twice, three times, counting her paces to the door and back to the window and across to the bunk. She snapped around on her heel again and found herself at the window, her hands flat against the sill. She could see the inoffensive green square of a garden, fringed with trees and rippling with the wind.

Shepard waited, her thoughts swirling, until the sun sank away and the room turned grey and stifling. Methodically, she kicked off her boots and swapped her fatigues for the shorts and vest she found in the single locker. As brusquely, she rolled herself beneath the sheets and waited for nothing, staring at the obdurate darkness until some of the impatience ebbed.

She slept badly, absurdly aware of the unmoving earth beneath the floor.

She surfaced from fragmented, uneven dreams and instinctively reached for Garrus. Her fingers skimmed over bunched sheets and bumped the wall. She twisted halfway to her knees before she remembered.

_ He wasn't here. _

She supposed she was turning soft and fucking sappy in her old age, but then she thought of how he'd looked at her, how he'd looked at her with such yearning in his face, and she knew it was nothing of the sort.

Not when the absence of him made her ache.

She considered the rumpled warmth of the sheets, gave up, and swung her feet onto the floor. Slowly and steadily and with all the steely patience she'd been taught, she settled her thoughts.

She could wait it out, she knew, if she had to, if she kept coming up against the same deliberate blank-wall ignorance she'd been handed so far. She could let them walk her through their bullshit until they listened, _until they had to listen_, and she was damned if she was going to let it happen quietly.

She pushed herself upright and almost idly wondered if the food was going to be as blandly suspicious as the _Normandy_'s late-watch fare. A few steps took her to the window and she stood there, her elbows braced on the sill, watching as the sky lightened.

* * *

><p>Garrus woke to the unfamiliar spill of sunlight through the narrow windows. He squinted past one raised arm and realised that he was half-dressed and tangled in pristine sheets and <em>still<em> in the visiting personnel quarters.

_Visiting_, he thought, only slightly venomously. Visiting and utterly out of place and _no_, they wouldn't be letting him see Shepard any time soon.

He shouldn't've been in the least bit surprised, he knew. He understood how it worked, how it had always worked, whether it was humans down here or up on the Citadel, but still, it had rankled enough that he'd seethed through the past two days. Anderson had taken off for the Council and his own labyrinth of paperwork, Joker had been called out to follow the _Normandy _for the first stages of its retrofit and Garrus had bullied himself into waiting out another night.

He wasn't even sure why.

He _knew_ she understood. But even so, he was sitting here uselessly, staring at the empty clasp of his own hands. Wrestling with himself as if he actually _had_ another choice. As if he'd never had her message back, the words slicing into his thoughts, relieving and unsettling at the same time.

_Head out when you need to and we'll catch up later. I understand.  
><em>

_ Later_, Garrus thought, and decided. He kicked the sheets away and reached for the rest of his clothes. He dressed quickly, his finger darting over the last of the buckles and fastenings.

A few brisk minutes took him back through the grey sprawl of the building and to the entrance hall. He loitered long enough for the kid on desk duty to sign off on his gear, and then loitered again while everything was fetched. The familiar, missed weight of the sniper rifle settled into its shoulder harness, and the pistol followed, clipped at his waist.

Outside, the early sunlight mantled the white paths. Garrus paused, his fingers flicking over his omni-tool. He tapped out a brief message to Tali, part question and part explanation, and when her reply flashed onto the screen – _Give me fifteen minutes_ – he found himself almost smiling. He waited, perched on a stone bench and breathing in the shifting brine-scent of the morning.

"I think you read my mind," Tali said, from somewhere behind him.

Garrus turned, standing in the same motion. "I figure if we're going to get anything useful done, it might as well be now."

"Like it's that easy?" she asked, pointedly.

"No," he admitted. "Course not. But it was that or start climbing the walls."

"Probably not a good thing."

"Probably not." He tilted his head on one side. "No Jack?"

"No." Tali shrugged. "She took off yesterday. I caught her on her way out. She says good luck and hope you don't get yourself killed too quickly."

Garrus laughed. "Very sweet. I don't suppose she promised to stay out of trouble?"

"Of course not."

"I'm disappointed."

"No, you're not," she told him drily. "Do you have a plan?"

"I guess I'm going home," he said, and grimaced.

"That bad?"

"Very funny." He sighed, and added, "I don't know. Maybe it is. You?"

"The Flotilla," she answered, quietly.

"Hey," Garrus said. "It's okay."

"Yes, I know."

"You know," he said. "I'll even come with you as far as the spaceport. Maybe even to the Citadel."

"Thank you so much." Her head lifted, and he could see the faint lines of her face, softening into something like a smile. "And it's got nothing to do with you not knowing your way around here either?"

"Nothing at all."

He tried to ignore the strange, fluttering uncertainty – because he _wasn't_ walking away, not really, he was doing what they knew had to be done. Because he was useless, sitting here on Earth and staring up into the sky and wondering what the hell was happening elsewhere. Because he needed to be _doing_ something and because he knew and Shepard knew that there was no way he could sit here under the lancing fall of the sun and just wait.

"Come on," Tali said, her voice breaking into his thoughts. "Let's get ourselves out of here."

* * *

><p>The spaceport was a cluster of silver towers, spanning the wide, glittering length of the river. Half an hour of wandering and Garrus found them both passage to the Citadel. By the time he'd handed payment over, his mind was already lurching ahead.<p>

He needed to find himself a shuttle to Palaven, and he needed to see Tali onto whatever ship was going the Flotilla's way, mainly because he knew Shepard and his own conscience would flay him alive if he didn't.

He trailed Tali up the ramp and onto the lumbering, ungainly grey transport they'd booked. He settled himself into a seat next to her, half aware of the bland, chattering sounds of the other passengers as they filed down the walkway. Somewhere below, the engines rumbled into life.

"So," Garrus said, to distract himself. "Feel like you're being stared at?"

"I'm a quarian. I'm always being stared at."

"Funny."

He gritted his teeth through the swaying shudder as the transport lifted into the air. He remembered how he'd seen the landing zone from the _Normandy_'s cockpit, leaning over Joker's shoulder as he glided the ship in between the arching spires of the city. Shining and orderly and split by surging patches of green. He'd muttered something sarcastic to Shepard, and grinned at her response.

_"Yeah, well. Not all of my home planet is a shoddy hellhole. Just most of it."_

_ Garrus straightened up and looked at her. She was staring over the top of Joker's head, her face unreadable. _

_ "Hey," Garrus said, and reached for her hand. Her fingers wreathed around his, slack for an instant before she squeezed back hard. _

_ "You know," Joker remarked. "Whatever it is you're both doing, I want no part of it." _

_ "Just fly the ship," Shepard said mildly. _

_ "Yes, Commander." _

The transport's narrow windows were dark now, blurred with the streak of the stars. His thoughts were twisting again, viciously, and he wondered how differently he might have felt, if he'd walked away from her before he'd learned that she tended to sprawl gracelessly all over the sheets at night. Before he'd woken with her burrowed under his arm and wrapped around his chest as if she never wanted to move.

Before he'd had himself buried in her to the hilt, with nothing but the startling, wonderful proximity of bare skin and muscle and breath between them.

_Easier,_ he thought, and almost hated the biting truth of it. _Easier but easier isn't better. _

"Garrus," Tali said, and stirred in her seat. "Are you alright?"

"Day-dreaming."

"She'll be fine."

"I never said," he protested, and stopped. "Yeah. I hope so."

"You know what I was thinking?"

"What?"

"I don't know whether it used to be simpler," Tali said. "Or I just want to think that it was. Because perhaps back then, we weren't sure what was going to happen."

"That last part I agree with." Garrus bared his teeth in a tired grin. "Easy to shoot geth when you don't know what's around the next corner."

"Do you remember Therum?"

Garrus laughed. "Never forget it. I think that's where I knew things were going to be interesting, at least."

"Was that before or after you were whining about the heat?"

"I was commenting. I _like_ the heat."

"Right," Tali said, and he heard the teasing amusement in her voice. "I forgot."

_He lurched behind the smooth curve of the rock, fast enough that it drove the breath from his chest. He jammed his rifle under his shoulder and waited, his attention on his visor and the numbers it was spilling out. _

_ His comm unit crackled, and Shepard snapped, "Got something big up ahead."_

_ "Big?" Alenko replied. "What do we mean, big?"_

_ "Like that thing we ran over," Shepard answered, and Garrus could've sworn she was half-laughing. _

_ "Great." _

_ "Vakarian, you read me?"_

_ "I hear you, Commander. All clear here."_

_ "Good. Move up with Alenko. Flank me and shoot if you see anything you think is ugly or dangerous." _

_ "Got it." _

_ He waited, poised and terse, until he heard Alenko move out first. Measured, careful steps, and his visor recorded the man's movements as he edged forward. Garrus lingered a heartbeat longer before he was following, too aware of the rising tangle of metal up ahead, and the way the strange jagged scaffold blocked out the light. He kept his shoulders back against the rocks and moved slowly, his fingers a little too tight against his trigger. _

_ Under his feet, the soil gave way too easily. It was hot and rough and the air above it shimmered. He could taste the heat, metallic and heavy and clinging._

_ "Movement," Alenko said. _

_ Something shifted, and the half-light splintered across curving metal limbs. _

_ "Yeah," Garrus responded, almost breathless. "I see it. Part of it."_

_ "Okay." Shepard's voice hardened. "Give me a distraction."_

_ "Shepard?" Alenko asked. _

_ "Distraction. Now. This shiny bastard is ours." _

_ Garrus heard the shivering surge of Alenko's biotics, and the silvery, clawed thing – it was a geth, some kind of geth, and it was fucking huge – swung around. Another swirling blue sphere crashed over it, and it sparked. Garrus rolled up onto his knees and fired, repeating shots that bit into the geth monstrosity's head – or whatever the hell it was, the heavy glowing thing that was where its head should've been – until it swiveled to fix on him. _

_ Stupidly stubborn, he fired again, and the round caught in the flaring light above one of its gun ports. It smashed and guttered and then the thing was staggering, two of its hooked legs swaying and tangled in another flare of biotic energy. _

_ He heard Shepard shouting at him to keep down, and he obeyed, throwing himself back behind the slant of the rock. He heard the shattering clamour of gunfire at close range, bullets whining into metal. Silence followed, and the sound of feet against the dragging, hot earth. _

_ "Okay," Shepard said raggedly. "It's down." _

_ Garrus straightened up, planting one hand on the rock. The geth was still huge, even crumpled across the ground, its head a fractured, sputtering mess. _

_ "Vakarian, you okay?"_

_ "Yeah, Commander. Still breathing. You?"_

_ "Fine," she answered, and he thought he saw her smile behind the plates of her helmet. "Alenko?"_

_ "All good here." _

_ "Good. Tali, Williams," Shepard said, lifting her omni-tool. "Get yourselves up here so we can go find ourselves an archaeologist." _

* * *

><p>Garrus surfaced from indistinct, uneven thoughts that were halfway to sleep. Beside him, Tali shifted in her seat and nudged him.<p>

"Sorry," Garrus mumbled. "More tired than I thought."

"It's alright. We're nearly there."

"Good."

He made himself sit silently through the last stretches of the descent between the Citadel's wide, glittering ward-arms. Something very like impatience had lodged in his chest, and he wanted to be moving and _away_. With Tali keeping pace beside him, he fought his way through the late afternoon crowds and across another seething plaza to Outgoing Transportation.

He checked the times for Palaven, swallowed, and almost signed himself onto a later shuttle-run out. _No_, he thought. _Stupid to loiter around and _why_ should he be at all worried about going home? _

_ Because it's been so long_, some treacherous, needling thought supplied. _Because you never explained why. Because you never explained _anything_. _

"Garrus," Tali said, and he turned. "I'm ready."

"You found something already?"

"Nearest I can get," she answered. "Raan's been keeping me updated on their co-ordinates."

"That's good?"

She shrugged. "I suppose it's good. I want to see her again. I want to see them all again, it just…I'm not sure."

"Things change?"

"And things that don't," Tali admitted, quieter.

"Yeah," Garrus said, heavily. "That part I hear."

"Yes."

"Look," he said. Awkwardly, he twisted his hands together. "I'm really bad at this kind of thing. You will be taking care of yourself out there?"

"Garrus," Tali said, and he was sure she was smirking at him. "Is that the sound of you being nice?"

"Funny."

"And besides, I got myself through my Pilgrimage. And Ilos."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and grinned. "But you got shot."

"I was ambushed," she protested. "I'll be fine."

"Let me know how things go."

"Of course." Her voice softened, and she added, "And you have to let me know about Shepard."

"Yeah," he said, and the word fell off his tongue rough and painful. He walked with her to the far end of the plaza, stopping just ahead of the landing ramp. "Any idea what you'll do when you catch up with them again?"

"Hopefully nothing complicated."

"And when has that ever been an option?"

Tali laughed. "Yes, I'm sure my plan to just fix things quietly in a corner won't last long."

"It's still a good plan."

"What's yours?"

He wanted to say something half-serious about having no damn clue, not yet, and how it'd be likely he'd get halfway to Palaven before quitting and running. "I have some talking to do," Garrus said. "And I'm really hoping Dad's in a listening kind of mood for once."

"Good luck," Tali said, and leaned up to squeeze his shoulder.

He watched her go, striding up the ramp and through the last door. He waited an instant longer before turning away, his gut knotted with impatience again. He had an hour, and he spent most of it fretting his way through his thoughts. He forced himself to eat, and afterwards, he could barely remember what he'd ordered. He wasted the last of his hour dawdling back to the shuttle loading ramp, trying to think of anything but Palaven and failing wretchedly.

It had been _years_, he thought. Years and too many mistakes and now he thought he was going to dance in and hope like hell that it might work.

On board, he settled himself into the narrow seat and simmered. He wanted the damn ship to lift into the air so he could start getting this over with – this stupid decision he'd made, the only one he could make – and start figuring out what he was meant to do next.

He thought of the still, uncomplicated warmth of Shepard's quarters, and the two of them tangled in the sheets there.

_"So," Garrus said, between uneven breaths. "That was what, Liara's apartment, the whole damn trade centre, any poor bastard you ran into with the cab, and a hotel."_

_ "I didn't run into anyone," Shepard retorted. _

_ "Sure you didn't." _

_ She stretched against him, languid and naked and laughing. "You really want to make this an argument?" _

_ "Well," Garrus said, and rubbed his face against the soft junction of her neck and shoulder. "What do I get if I win?" _

* * *

><p>The airlock slid open, and the heat washed over him first. Stifling and closing around him and Garrus breathed it in, slowly, the heavy warmth of it. He stepped out into the punishing glare of the sunlight and paused. The weight of it hit his shoulders and his head and then his eyes when he looked up. The clear blue bowl of the sky above was fierce already, mirror-bright and cloudless.<p>

By the time he crossed the wide, open avenues of the spaceport, the heat was seeping under his armour. Another few minutes took him through the slanting shadows of high grey pillars and under the towering rise of a bridge. All ordered, knife-edged lines and he wondered at how it didn't feel quite right.

_Because he'd wasted so much time on the Citadel_, he supposed. Because he'd been shipped off to bootcamp and then he'd settled in with his platoon and finally he'd found himself walking into C-Sec and he'd spent too many of the intervening years avoiding reasons to be here.

He found an empty bench and sat. For a long, uncertain moment he listened to the ordinary, unremarkable sounds of the morning. Footsteps snapping out against the ground and the idle rumble of voices and he knew he was floundering.

_Just get on with it_, Garrus thought viciously, and keyed his omni-tool into life. He stared at the screen as if it might write the damn message for him.

_Dear Dad_, he thought, and scowled.

_Hey, Dad. I'm back planetside. _

_ Dad. I'm back planetside. _

_ Hey. I'm back planetside. _

He cleared the screen, tried again, and typed out a message stating where he was, when he'd arrived, and asking if his father had time to see him. He wasn't sure if it was formal enough or _too_ damn formal, but he made himself send it before he lost the rest of the day tinkering with the words.

The reply hit the screen twenty-three minutes later, bland and to the point and would it suit him to find himself a cab right now?

Garrus exhaled sharply. He wrote out a quick affirmation, flicked his omni-tool off and pushed up to his feet.

The cab ride seemed to take far too long, the vehicle dragging its way through the deadlocked tangle of late morning traffic. Glass-fronted towers speared up in even, measured rows along both sides of the transport lanes. Garrus waited, his hands cupped tight over his knees, while the cab snaked slowly on and his thoughts turned over on themselves.

When he finally hauled himself out of the cab and into the wide, square space of the lobby, he realised his breathing was too shallow. Silently, he cursed himself for being an idiot, and walked through the last security scanner.

At the apartment door, he squared his shoulders and pressed the comm button. "Hey," he said. "Dad? It's me."

An instant later the door was sliding open and he was staring into his father's face, all severe angles and level blue eyes. He suppressed the urge to shuffle his feet slightly, noticed that his father was looking tired, and asked, "You okay?"

"Fine," his father answered, clipped. His eyes darted, rapid and scrutinizing. "Garrus. What _happened_ to you?"

The _scars_, Garrus realised, the damn scars that still webbed across one side of his face and ruined the lines of his markings. Suddenly, painfully, he wondered if he should've said something. "Long story."

"I'm sure." His father studied him a moment longer. "Come in, Garrus."

"Thanks." He trailed his father into the hallway and further in, under the first archway and into the wide, airy room that looked out over the silvery spread of the city below. The apartment was as clinically tidy as he remembered, the ivory walls broken by paintings and the long, wrap-around windows.

"Sit down," his father said, and gestured him to one of the couches.

He obeyed, letting his hands rest loosely in his lap. "I'm sorry about the short notice."

"No, it's fine," his father said in the same unreadable tone.

The silence clamped down, and Garrus wondered what the hell he was supposed to say next. He wanted to ask what his father was thinking, and why he was looking so damn old, with too many lines quarried around his eyes.

"Okay," Garrus said. He met his father's querying gaze and added, "I'm here because I really need your help."

"Go on."

"I didn't know who else to go to right now," he said, and the words cut between them, searing and honest. "I really need you to listen to me."

"That's it?" his father asked, his voice softening slightly.

"Hah. Maybe. We'll have to see what you think afterwards."

"That sounds promising," his father said drily.

Garrus grinned. "Don't bet on it. Okay. You remember a couple of years ago? When I ended up serving on the _Normandy_?"

"Yes."

"I was digging into Saren and his movements. Every time I got near something useful, I hit a wall."

"I remember."

"Well, the _Normandy_ had just come in from Eden Prime. They'd had their own run-in with Saren. Or at least with Saren's allies." He was speaking too fast, he knew, the words tripping over themselves and the details all out of order already. He needed to slow down and work through it steadily and sensibly and with as much clarity as he could muster.

"Go on," his father said, and the unhurried, patient rasp of his voice eased the last of the tension in Garrus' shoulders. "I've nowhere to go right now."

"Good," Garrus said. "Because this is where it starts getting interesting."


	30. Adrift

_Firstly, an apology for the gap between chapters. Life and the end of the semester got in the way for a while, but I am hoping to get back to more regular posting. A huge thank-you to everyone who is following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty – Adrift**_

The glare of the sun through the long windows faded. Garrus' throat felt sandy when he swallowed, and he wondered how long he'd been talking, how long he'd been trying to shape years into words.

"Go back to Vigil," his father said, in the same measured, slightly curious tone Garrus had heard all afternoon.

He was thinking, Garrus knew, thinking his way through all the messy bits and pieces of it and fitting them together. Digging in with questions Garrus had either forgotten or disregarded because he'd never quite stood on the outside of it like this.

"The VI?"

_The whirling soft-voiced echo of a dead civilization, and the dreadful, clawing realization that the stasis pods that filled the high chamber outside – thousands upon thousands of them – were not empty. _

"Yes. Your problem is lack of evidence," his father said, bluntly. "Did you take anything from Ilos? Footage of the VI? The stasis pods? The conduit?"

"It wasn't high on the agenda," Garrus replied wryly. "But hell, Dad. Sovereign flew _into_ the damn Citadel."

"A _ship_ flew into the Citadel. One under Arterius' control and supported by geth."

"Yeah, I've heard that a few times."

"What happened to Sovereign?"

"I helped with the clean-up in the wards," Garrus admitted. "There's footage of that."

"What else?"

"The dead Reaper," he said. "The one we pulled the IFF from. The asteroid. The Alpha relay. The Collector base."

"That's good," his father said. "But it's still all coming from a Cerberus-supported mission."

"Should that matter?"

"Garrus," his father said, heavily. "You know it will. We need an argument that isn't going to fall apart, and all we've got is evidence that comes tangled up in a pro-human terrorist organization."

"All _we've_ got?" Garrus said, pointedly, before he could help himself.

"Yes," his father responded. "Unless you've decided you don't need my help?"

"_No_," Garrus muttered. He let his shoulders slacken and added, "Sorry."

"No need."

The silence lingered, edged and brittle. Garrus pressed his hands together, wrestled with the absurd urge to snap something deliberately surly, and said, "Shepard's reports. They're consistent."

"Everything after Shepard was labeled MIA is tied to Cerberus."

"Yeah, but she's still a Spectre."

"Wonderful," his father said, drily. "Alright. That we can use. Not perfect, but perhaps it's workable."

"But?"

"But the connection between Arterius and the Reapers depends upon what you saw and heard on Ilos and Virmire. Otherwise all we have are a sequence of events that might be connected _if_ you choose to believe that Arterius wasn't just manipulating the geth."

"He _wasn't_," Garrus snapped. "Not like that, anyway. They were following Sovereign as much as they were following Saren and I know that because I chased the bastard halfway across the galaxy and back."

"And your proof is?"

"Because I _saw_ how many wires were sticking out of him by the end of it. Because I _saw_ how he'd given himself over to Sovereign." He sighed, shakily, and reined back the flare of his temper. "And _no_, I didn't get him to sign a confession about it."

"All this proves is what we already know. That Arterius was a traitor."

"I _know_ that."

_"Okay," Commander Shepard said, and Garrus saw the other human soldiers beside her shift a little. "I'm hearing you. But why do you want to hunt Saren down? You're a turian."_

_ Garrus snarled. "He's a traitor. He's a disgrace to my people. Is that enough?"_

_ "Yeah, that's enough." One side of her mouth moved. "I had to ask." _

_ "Yeah." He made himself relax, made himself lean back against the wall. "What else do you have to ask?" _

_ This time, the smile reached her eyes. "I was wondering if I could get a look at your investigation report. And in exchange we can tell you all about what we saw on Eden Prime."_

_ Something uncoiled through him, something that was part desperation and part surging hope. "Yeah," he said. "That would be good." _

_ Twenty minutes later he closed his office door and gestured them across to the cluttered mess of his desk. "Okay," Garrus said. "Give me a minute, and I'll have those reports for you." _

_ "Appreciated," Shepard said. "What do you know about Eden Prime?" _

_ "Some," he admitted. He punched up the main screen and added, "Mainly through Ambassador Udina. But I only know Kryik was sent with you because I dug for it."_

_ "Right." Shepard leaned back in the chair. "Did you know he's dead?"_

_ "No. I didn't."_

_ "He was killed, and we talked to a witness who claimed a turian who answered to the name Saren shot him." _

_ Garrus froze. "A witness?"_

_ "A man named Powell." Shepard's mouth creased into a slight smile. "Lazy bastard slept through his shift. It saved his life." _

_ "Sending the report now," Garrus said, and tapped the keyboard again. He leaned back, his thoughts whirling. "Saren. You're certain?" _

_ "Powell was certain."_

_ "Can I ask the details?" _

_ "He described Kryik, pretty exactly. He described the other turian as taller, bigger. Blue eyes. No obvious markings on his face. And he had," Shepard said, and scowled. She lifted gloved hands and gestured at her own face. "I don't know what you'd call them. Cheekbones. The shape of his face here, long and sharp."_

_ Garrus barked out a laugh. "Yeah, that sounds about right." He shook his head, almost marveling. "One Spectre killing another. Commander, do you have any idea what this could mean?"_

_ "I'm hoping it could mean we might get some answers."_

_ "Likewise. I hope this isn't presumptive, Commander, but I'd really like to know what else happened on Eden Prime." _

_ "Of course." _

_ Garrus listened, his hands clasped on the desk, while they talked. There had been geth, he understood, _geth_ outside the Veil, and the geth had mowed through the settlement and the digsite and torn apart Williams' company. There had been Kryik, found sprawled on the ground, the front of his face a liquid mess. There had been dreadful spikes that reached up into the seething sky and they had found humans on them, trapped and impaled and not quite dead. _

_ There had been a ship that had lifted into the sky far too fast. _

_ Garrus breathed out slowly. Shepard was looking at him – hell, they were _all_ looking at him, expectantly and with something like uncertainty – and he guessed that they supposed he was going to laugh. _

_ "Okay," Garrus said. "You're right. It does sound strange." _

_ "But?" _

_ "But it's the only other lead I have right now and you're the only people who are hearing anything I'm saying." _

_ Shepard grinned. "So we've got a deal? We'll help you, you'll help us, and maybe we'll nail this bastard." _

_ "Sounds like my kind of plan, Commander." _

"Okay," Garrus said, into the waiting gulf of the silence. "What do you believe?"

"You," his father answered, softer.

Garrus swallowed. "And here I thought you were just humouring me."

"Only a little. Though no, third party accounts of a Spectre's _dreams_ are not the kind of evidence that will sway this in your favour."

"I'm just impressed you're remembering everything I've said."

"I'm retired, not dead," his father said pointedly. "Alright. One more question."

"Just the one?"

"For tonight. What is it you want?"

"What do you mean?"

His father gestured with one hand, elegant and unhurried. "Telling me this. What do you want to come of it?"

"I want us to get them to _do_ something about it." Garrus scowled and added, "And don't tell me you don't talk to anyone in the government anymore."

"I take this higher, and you have to be ready to say it again and again," his father said. "I can get you in to see the right people, but it's going to have to be you doing the hard work."

"I can do that."

"And if it works? What do you want to ask for?"

"Supply lines strengthened," Garrus said firmly. "Early warning detection protocols. When the Reapers get here they'll hit us quick and they'll hit us hard. We'll need to mobilize fast."

Slowly, his father nodded. "Alright. That's a sensible start."

"Thanks. I think." Garrus exhaled sharply. "That was more than one question."

"Yes, I suppose it was. Are you hungry?"

Garrus laughed, the sudden, lurching relief of it washing through him. "Starving."

* * *

><p>Garrus busied himself carrying the plates, and by the time he'd set them down, his stomach was growling. He'd helped – <em>well, he'd taken orders while his father organized the kitchen much the way he organized anything else, exacting and precise – <em>and he'd tried too hard not to think of what he hadn't asked yet.

"You know," Garrus said, almost absently. He leaned over his plate and breathed in the warm, slightly spicy scent. "Food's better down here."

His father laughed, a short, clipped sound. "Good."

Garrus ate slowly, rarely looking up from the plate, or the drink beside it, far too aware of his father's impassive presence on the other side of the table.

"Okay," he said, and the word jarred, too loud. "This feel as weird for you as it does for me?"

"Probably," his father answered. "Alright. This Spectre. Shepard."

"What about her?"

"Will they listen to her?"

"The Alliance?" Garrus swallowed. "I don't know. I don't know if it'll take time, or if it'll take the Reapers."

His father paused, his head lifting slightly. "Meaning?"

"The Reapers. They're gunning for Shepard. They _know_ who she is. They've got Earth in their sights because she's been pissing them off for years."

"You're certain?"

"She's human and she's beaten them back more than once. They know her and they know having her in their way has just been slowing them down." Viciously, he remembered Harbinger's words as they slithered from the Collectors' mouths, challenging and relentless.

_"You've changed nothing, human. Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater." _

"You've served under her a fair while now," his father said blandly.

Garrus coughed and grabbed for his drink. "Yeah," he managed. He hunted for something else to say – _something, anything that wasn't the absurd, suicidal urge to say something about how she really liked it that way_ – and failed.

He nodded when his father lifted the carafe again, and afterwards, he stacked the plates.

"Sit down," his father said, mildly admonishing. "You don't need to rush around helping."

"Well, no, I know that," he protested. "I just…yeah, okay."

"Do you want to talk?"

"Yes," Garrus said, honest and searing and startling himself. "I'd, yeah. Really like that."

Something in his father's face softened, something around his eyes. He tipped his head to one side, and Garrus trailed him back out and into the other room. He sank back onto the couch he'd spent the afternoon perched on, the glass still clutched between his fingers.

"You want to start?" Garrus asked, and hoped he'd pitched his voice genial enough.

"Yes," his father said. He sat opposite, his hands crossed over his knees, and his blue gaze unerringly direct. "Your face. How did it happen?"

Garrus clicked his teeth shut. "My face?"

"Your markings."

"They got shot off," he said defiantly, and almost wished he hadn't.

"Right," his father said. "And this happened because?"

"Because the mercs I pissed off sufficiently enough took it into their heads to get themselves a gunship."

"Well," his father said. "You did warn me that it was a long story."

"You really want to know?"

"_Garrus_."

He nodded, slowly, painfully. "It was on Omega. I didn't think…I don't know. I didn't think it would go to hell like it did. Not as fast as it did."

"What do you mean?"

Garrus lifted his head and the words fell from his mouth. All of it, awkward and terrible and his _failure_ and Sidonis. The dragging, slow hours he'd spent in his eyrie while he waited, certain it was him and his rifle and the implacable patience of the mercs on the bridge below. Shepard, and how she'd pulled him out of there and onto the _Normandy _again and how it'd been so obvious, so _right_, to say yes to Cerberus and the Collector mission.

"Spirits, Garrus," his father said heavily. "You could have been killed. You _should_ have been killed."

"I know it."

"Do you?" His father shook his head. "I'm sorry. That was unfair."

"No," Garrus said. "It wasn't. I didn't…hell, I don't know what I'm even saying. Dad?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry I didn't say anything about it before."

"No. You don't need to apologise. Not for something like that."

His father's voice was faltering, the measured tones roughening, and Garrus realised that he no fucking clue about what to do. "Hey," he said, to give himself something to say, something that could fill the aching space between them. "I'm okay. Just not quite as stunningly good-looking as I used to be."

"Right," his father said. His gaze flickered uncertainly, jumping from the glossy rise of the window to somewhere just past Garrus' shoulder. "It's getting late. Are you staying?"

"Here?" Garrus winced. "Sorry. I meant, is that okay?"

"Do you think I'd ask if it wasn't?"

"No. It's just," Garrus said, and hesitated. This was s_tupid_, he realised. Stupid that he was still tripping over his own voice as if he expected to be told that he was about to be in trouble for something. Stupid that he'd left it this long, and all because he'd been too damn uncertain about what he might find.

"It's just?"

"It's just strange," he admitted. "Being back here. It's been a while."

"Yes, it has." As quietly, his father added, "I'm glad you're here."

Garrus swallowed, his tongue too dry and scraping against the back of his teeth. "Thanks, Dad."

* * *

><p>"<em>Okay," Shepard said, still laughing. "Worst mission?"<em>

_ "Define 'worst'."_

_ "Everything falls apart and somehow you get through?" She scowled. "Actually that might be worthy of the best mission category."_

_ "Luckiest perhaps," Garrus conceded. "Come here."_

_ She grinned. "Why?"_

_ "You're too far away." _

_ "You're lucky I like you." She rolled herself against him, one of her legs angling up over his hip. _

_ "Most memorable op?" Garrus asked lazily. _

_ "Well, I'd say it's a solid tie between Virmire, the Collectors' slimy little headquarters and that part where we thought Saren was dead. You know, before he stood up again."_

_ Garrus chuckled. "Yeah, that was surprising." _

_ "Though after that there was that bit where half the Presidium fell on me."_

_ "Wasn't half." _

_ "It was a very big bit of it. And an even bigger piece of Sovereign."_

_ "Well, you heard the bastard, Shepard. Vanguard of our destruction. Even after he'd been blown up." _

_ She was laughing again, stifling the sound of it against his chest. "Not funny, turian." _

_ "Sure it isn't." _

Garrus woke, aware of the cling of the sheets and the blaze of early sunlight. His thoughts floundered through a confused, wrenching moment before he remembered he was on Palaven.

He was on Palaven, and he was sleeping in the same room he'd always slept in here, the same room he'd once spent an entire summer keeping his sister barred from.

He dragged his clothes on and afterwards, he yanked the bedcovers straight. He paused at the window, and stared at the silvery spread of the city, sharp towers jagging up against the surging flood of the sunlight. He stepped out into the corridor, and a few strides took him around the corner, through the high archway and into the kitchen. He discovered his father already there, and he wondered why he was vaguely surprised.

"Garrus," his father said, turning. He smiled, briefly, a quick flash of his teeth. "You slept well?"

"Yeah, I did. Still weird, not feeling ship engines."

"It's always like that, coming back planetside."

"Yeah." The words were vanishing again, he realised, drying up and almost desperately, he hunted for something else to say. "It is."

"I'll be going in today," his father said, his tone neutral. "I'm assuming we'll need to be convincing, so I thought we'd just plunge right in and arrange to see the Primarch about it."

"Fedorian? Today?"

"Well," his father said, his eyes glittering wryly. "I don't know if we'll get quite that far that fast, but we can certainly start making noise about it."

"Sounds like a plan I can get behind," Garrus said. "What do you need me to do?"

"Everything you've already been doing. We'll need Shepard's reports, yours, any additional information you want to add. And clean yourself up."

Garrus scowled. "Thanks."

"You asked."

"Okay," he said, lifting his hands in surrender. "Okay."

"I'll update you as soon as I can."

"Thank you," Garrus said.

He opened his mouth to say something else, but his father had already turned, the softer gloom of the archway swallowing him. He sighed, almost exasperated. A little bit older, Garrus conceded, and a little more worn around the eyes but still as brusque as ever once he got his mind pinned on something to think his way through.

He loitered in the kitchen until he'd heaped a plate with food – _real food_, he thought, _food that didn't come out looking it had already been recycled_ – and ambled back through to the table.

There was too much space, the walls and high curve of the ceiling all awash with the sunlight. He tried to ignore the strange, silent emptiness and turned his attention to breakfast instead. He finished too quickly, and busied himself going over every inch of his armour until he'd smoothed away the newest scuffs and scrapes. Afterwards, he pressed the pads of his fingers against the scars. Silently, he traced the jagged map they made, felt where they gave way to the sharper angles of his face, where they sliced through the blue markings.

He remembered that he'd once told Shepard that he wasn't a particularly good turian, and he wondered if she'd laugh now, seeing him sitting amid the shining pieces of his armour and wondering how the hell to talk to the Primarch.

_Except_, he thought, if she did laugh, it would be gently, teasingly, and then she'd agree with him that all he had to do was get himself there and start talking.

_And if the talking didn't work he could always move on to shouting_.

He wasted half the day, his thoughts skittering unhelpfully when he tried to read or when he flicked the vidscreen on or even when he simply sat on the bed and stared at the jagged towers of the city, ablaze with the fierce heat of the afternoon.

His omni-tool flashed. Briskly, he punched the message screen up and saw his father's words, as concise and clipped as if he'd spoken them.

_Four days. Details when I get home._

_Home_, Garrus thought, and the word sat uneasy and strange in the back of his thoughts. He wondered how young he would've been, the last time he called this place home. He'd thought of it as a collection of rooms strung together that he'd been waiting to leave. _Hell_, he thought, he'd been waiting to leave the whole damn _planet_, and now the Reapers had him back here and needing to stay.

He heard the faint whirr of the main door, so he called out, "In here."

Measured footsteps, and then his father paused, one hand on the doorframe. "Mind if I come in?"

Despite himself, Garrus laughed. "Like you've ever bothered asking before."

"Yes, well. It's different."

"Because I'm not twelve?"

"You haven't been twelve for a long time."

"Nice," Garrus retorted, but there was little sting in his voice. "How'd it go?"

"It'll be a courtesy meeting, but that was about the best I could get so quickly. You won't have long," his father said warningly.

"Did you give them any background?"

"Not much. I did say your information was directly connected with Arterius and the attack on the Citadel, and the human Spectre. But," his father added. "The problem with it is once you start talking about ancient sentient ships and husks and Collectors, suddenly there's a lot more to explain."

"Yeah. I know how that feels."

"Alright," his father said. He sat, his shoulder brushing Garrus'. "Let's go through it again."

"Dad. I know what I'm going to say."

"Good. And I know they'll pick it apart. Which is exactly what I'm going to do right now, so start talking."

"You know," Garrus said wryly. "You're really not getting this retirement thing right."

* * *

><p>For the third time in as many hours, Tali woke to the low rumble of the engines. She sat up, opening her eyes to the half-darkness of the tiny cabin. For a long, slow moment she listened to the thrum of the ship.<p>

"You're not sleeping," Raan said, from where she sat, her attention pinned on the glow of the console screen.

"No," Tali admitted. She pressed gloved hands together. "It's stupid."

"No, it isn't. You've been away a long time."

"Yes." She waited for Raan to say something else, but only the soft, measured tapping of her fingers at the console broke the quiet. She swung her feet onto the floor. "How long have I got?"

"Until your shift? Four hours."

Tali nodded. "Thank you."

There would, she thought, at least be something for her to do once shift change clicked over. Once she could take herself into the engine room and make herself useful. Once she could silence the incessant prickle of her thoughts with the surging, soothing sound of the ship's main drive.

They were treating her gently, too gently, and they had been since she had stepped off the shuttle and into the Flotilla and Raan had welcomed her in with a fierce, breath-stopping hug.

_"We wondered if you would ever be back."_

_ "Of course," Tali said, and wrapped her arms around Raan's waist. "I just, you know. Had some things to do." _

_ "And now?" _

_ "I'd like to help. I'd like to help, and I'd like you to hear about what I saw."_

The Collector Base, and the huge hulking shape of the thing Shepard had said had looked uncannily like it was meant to be some grotesque approximation of a human. The asteroid and the Reaper and she had seen Shepard's face in the days afterwards, when she had spoken about the thing Kenson called Object Rho. The terrible, lancing knowledge that the Reapers had been slowed and not stopped and Raan had listened and nodded and told her that the Migrant Fleet had their own concerns.

How long, she wondered. How long had she carried around the awful, wrenching awareness that _something else_ seethed behind everything?

_The air above her head was shattered by the roar of gunfire. She heard someone shouting something, a woman's voice, clipped and determined. Someone else yelled something back, and when another round burst past her, Tali pressed herself desperately against the wall. _

Nowhere to go_, she thought frantically. The alley was cramped and narrow and she did not dare bolt for the steps, not yet. She hunched lower and flinched when a volley of bullets scoured the wall inches above her. _

_ Silence returned, eventually, broken only by the sound of footsteps. _

_ "Hey. You okay there?" _

_ She twisted upright, too quickly, her shoulder thumping against the wall. "Yes," she managed. She looked up into the face of the human woman she had seen before, the one who had hurtled into the alleyway first. "I'm fine, thank you."_

_ "Come on." Carefully, the human woman guided her upright. "You're not hurt?"_

_ "No. No, I'm fine."_

_ "You're Tali'Zorah, yes?"_

_ "Yes," she said. She gulped down another breath. "That's right."_

_ "I'm Commander Shepard." The human woman's expression softened. "I understand you have something. An audio recording?"_

_ "Yes," she said warily. _

_ "I'm sorry. I'll explain." The human woman slung her rifle back over her shoulder. "This is Williams, and Alenko." _

_ She nodded to the other two humans flanking her, and Tali looked at them. They were both soldiers, she understood, lean and armoured, the man smiling slightly while the woman checked her rifle. _

_ "And Vakarian," Shepard said, and indicated the tall turian who was standing against the far wall. _

_ Tali nodded, mostly to give herself something to do. "How did you find me?"_

_ "Doctor Michel," the turian said, in even, measured tones. "You went to see her?"_

_ "Yes. Yes, I did. She helped me." _

_ "And you spoke to an information broker," Shepard said. "That right?"_

_ "Yes. I did. I didn't know who else to go to." _

_ "No, it's alright." Shepard slouched back against the wall. She was sweat-streaked, Tali noticed, breathing hard and pale beneath dark hair. "We're not here to hurt you. We're not here to take anything from you. It's just, this recording of yours. If you agree, we'd really like to listen to it."_

_ "Why?" _

_ "Because I'm certain it corroborates something we're looking into." Shepard added, "Something about Saren Arterius. Something about Eden Prime?" _

_ Tali swallowed. The geth memory core and the grating words buried inside it had already sent her all over the station, and all she had gotten out of it so far was an ugly gunshot wound, more than a few vagrancy warnings and an impromptu interview with C-Sec. _

_ "Yes," Tali said carefully. "It contains data concerning an attack on Eden Prime." _

_ "Where did you get it?"_

_ Tali hesitated. "A geth memory core," she said. _

_ "Okay."_

_ "You believe that?" she demanded. _

_ Shepard smiled, crookedly. "Why not? We saw enough of the shiny bastards on Eden Prime." _

_ "I'm sorry," Tali said. "I don't…I don't understand."_

_ "It's okay. We can fill you in over lunch, if you want." _

_ Disbelievingly, Tali laughed. "Right."_

_ "Well," Shepard said mildly. "Unless you'd rather stand around here and talk about it?"_

_ "No," Tali said. "I really wouldn't." _

Tali stepped into the engine room forty-five minutes early and holed herself up at the far end of the low-roofed room, beside the steady whirr of the one of the cooling fans. She forced her thoughts blank and methodically, she worked her way through the ranks of consoles. She checked the screens, and the panels beneath, and whiled away another hour crouched and reaching into one of the tangles of wiring clusters.

Much later, she meandered her way back to the cabin, pleasantly tired and suspecting that she might actually sleep later. She hit the keypad and stepped inside, her gaze dropping to Raan as she turned from the console.

"Tali," Raan said. "You're alright?"

"Yes. Of course. What is it?"

Raan's head tilted, questioningly. "I've been asked to bring you to talk to the Admiralty Board."

"Why?" Tali blurted. "I mean, is this about the _Alarei? _Or Cerberus?"

"No," Raan said, gently. "It isn't. We're aware that you've spent much time around geth. More time than most, and your insights will be most highly regarded."

Tali paused, one hand clamped at the doorframe. "What do you mean?"

"We'd like to talk to you about Rannoch."


	31. Cages

_A very big thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty-One – Cages  
><strong>_

Garrus stood and waited. Beneath his armour – polished again this morning and gleaming – his shoulders were stiff. He was too aware of the flood of sunlight, blazing in through the huge, ceiling-high windows. Too aware of the Primarch's stare, leveled thankfully now at the datapad, and too aware of the stifling, unresponsive silence.

"That's it, Vakarian?"

"Yes, sir."

"Nothing else?"

"I'm not sure what else you could want, sir," Garrus said. His voice stayed steady, and he added, "I've submitted my findings and talked you through it. I've given you visual evidence and substantial corroborating written reports. This is nearly three years of findings that suggest one thing. The Reapers are still coming."

Fedorian's head lifted, and his gaze sliced over Garrus again, implacable. "I see evidence of Arterius' actions and his support of and use of the geth. I see evidence of a geth attack on the Citadel. Evidence of Collector attacks upon human colonies. Evidence of your own involvement with Cerberus. Evidence of Shepard's Spectre reinstatement."

"Yes, sir," Garrus said. He dug the tips of his fingers against his palms and stared at the inoffensive sweep of the wall above Fedorian's head. "But you're also choosing to ignore the evidence that clearly shows that Arterius' ship was sentient. That _it_ attacked the Citadel and the geth supported it. That the ship we took readings inside of was a derelict Reaper."

"You're calling these ships Reapers, Vakarian. All I'm seeing here is a ship that was destroyed at the Citadel and a derelict ship that contained evidence of geth technology."

"As I stated in my report, sir, the technology the geth used originated with the Reapers. Shepard thought – hell, _everyone_ thought it was geth tech when it was first seen on Eden Prime. They _saw_ the geth using it," Garrus said. He could hear his own voice grating, and he reined in the flare of his temper. "Just because the geth were using it does not stop it having originated with the Reapers."

"A conclusion that is not given realistic weight," Fedorian remarked. "I'm sorry, Vakarian. I've taken the time to hear you out. I've looked at the findings you've brought me."

"Sir," Garrus said, horribly aware that his voice was cutting across the Primarch's, that he needed to start digging his heels in and that he had too few minutes left to do it. "Listen. We've always held that Spectres might at times return from covert operations and have to submit reports for which there might be little recorded evidence. Why is this different?"

"Because you're talking about this government taking on and accepting the concept that these Reapers of yours exist. That sentient ships exist."

"They do," Garrus snapped. "I know because I've seen one of these things try and get its hooks into the Citadel. I've _walked around_ inside another. I've seen one of these things waking up. I've seen another one tell Shepard that they're still coming. I've heard them speak."

Silence answered him, thick and unyielding. Fedorian settled his hands against the desk again. "Vakarian, I am not about to inform our government that they are about to be attacked by giant ships that talk."

"Protecting Palaven is something that should be in all our interests, sir. Especially yours. Sir."

Fedorian's shoulders stiffened beneath the gleaming panels of his tunic. "Alright," he said, and Garrus heard something very like anger in his voice.

_Good_, he thought, venomously. _Finally._

"What is it you want, Vakarian?"

"Supply lines," he said, and the words ran off his tongue in a juddering rush. "I want them as strong as we've ever had them and more. I want every single stockpile in every station on-planet and off to be full and working. We'll need food and weapons and we'll need quick and easy access to them."

"Really?" Fedorian said. "What else?"

"We'll need to update our early warning detection protocols. And we'll need to monitor communications from off-planet as well. We'll need to dig through comm traffic to find any mention of anything that sounds at all like it might be the start of an invasion, anywhere. And we need to start right now."

"That's a lot that you want, Vakarian."

"Then give me a taskforce and we'll get it done ourselves," Garrus said.

"A taskforce."

"Twenty-five operatives," Garrus said. He was lurching ahead too quickly, he knew, jumping at the relentless silence between Fedorian's words. "More later if I need them. We'll have the clearance to act alone or otherwise, as I decide."

"As _you_ decide?" Fedorian demanded.

"Yes, sir. I'll keep you informed the whole way, but the responsibility will be mine." _Which meant the blame as well_, and frantically he hoped that maybe that might cajole Fedorian an inch closer to agreement. "Organising it, running it, keeping reports coming in at whatever rate you specify, I'll do that. All I need from you is the go-ahead."

Fedorian stared, and for a brief, half-absurd moment, Garrus wondered if he was about to be ordered out for insolence.

"Your time's up, Vakarian."

"Reconsider, sir. Just have another look at everything I've given you. The connections are there. The patterns are there."

"I'll consider it," Fedorian said. "You're dismissed."

* * *

><p>Garrus keyed the door open and stepped into the hallway. "Dad, you home?"<p>

He heard footsteps, and his father's brisk reply, before his shadow jagged through the archway. "How did it go?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Well, I mean, he didn't say no."

"But he didn't say yes."

"Unsurprisingly, that part where I had to tell him all about giant talking ships didn't go over all that well."

His father laughed, clipped and with little warmth. "What did you get?"

"A possibility that he'll look at my reports again."

"Alright." His father nodded. "Give it a few days. You get no response, then we can petition for another meeting."

"You know," Garrus said drily. "I never thought I'd hear you sound so enthusiastic about wanting to piss off the Primarch."

"It's not like I have much else to do right now."

There was some buried edge in his father's voice, rough and rasping and painful, and Garrus swallowed. "Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Maybe we could sit down first."

His father jerked his chin at the archway. "Well, come on. You can ask me on the way through."

He almost did, his gaze pinned on the wiry spread of his father's shoulders. Instead, he waited until they were both sitting, until he could press his hands together to distract himself slightly. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it," Garrus said. "But, ah. How's Mom?"

His father went very still. "No change."

"She's still off-planet?"

His father's gaze sharpened, so he confessed, "Solana told me. Messaged me. Months ago. We didn't talk for long. She just let me know and that was it."

"Right."

"Dad. Come on."

"I'm not sure what you want me to say," his father said. "You asked, I told you."

Garrus grappled with the awful urge to snarl back a retort. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Like what?"

"I don't _know_ what," he snapped. "I'm sorry. I don't…Credits?"

The word slipped from his mouth and a heartbeat later, he knew he should never have asked. _Not like that,_ he thought, not like that when it must've sounded cold and half-angry and about the worst fucking thing he could've said.

Not when his father was looking at him with tired, hollow eyes and not saying _anything_ in response.

"I'm really sorry," Garrus said, into the stretching quiet. "That was really insensitive. I don't know what it's been like. I can't know. I get that. I just wanted to ask if there was anything I could do, and, yeah. Came out wrong."

"Garrus," his father said eventually, softly. "Stop digging yourself deeper."

"Yeah. Okay. I just thought…yeah. I don't know."

"You're still doing it."

Helplessly, he shrugged. "Did you want to talk about it?"

"There's very little to say. She's no better. She's a little worse. It's slowed and not stopped. That's all."

Garrus nodded. "Thank you. If you do ever, you know. Want to talk."

"Yes," his father said. "Perhaps."

"Yeah." He battled with himself a moment longer, decided he couldn't leave it hanging, not like this, not now, and asked, "Is Solana around?"

"Why?"

"Spirits, Dad. I said I was sorry. You really going to make me work for this?"

"Naturally," his father answered, and his tone lightened a fraction. "Did you want to see her?"

"Would she want to see me?"

"Answering with a question isn't answering."

"I'd like to," Garrus said, and the core-deep, sudden honesty of it shook him. "If she's around. If it's not inconvenient."

"Alright. I'll contact her. See if she's got herself any leave stacked up."

Garrus nodded again, uselessly. His thoughts were floating, unmoored, and he wondered what else might be left apart from the truth, aching and febrile. "Hey. Dad?"

"Yes?"

"This thing," Garrus said heavily. "This thing with the Reapers. Knowing about it. I just feel like I've been carrying it around too long."

_The quarian flicked the audio on, and the buzz of static leaped up. She wrestled it until it settled, and Garrus listened, not sure what he was going to hear, not sure what he wanted to hear. On the other side of the desk, Commander Shepard leaned forward, her face locked into a faint frown. _

"Eden Prime was a major victory. It will bring us one step closer to the Conduit."

"_That's him," Garrus snarled. "That's Saren's voice. I'd swear to it."_

"_You're certain?" Alenko asked. _

"_Yes. I'm certain." _

_The quarian paused, her hand on the memory core. "Do you want to hear it again?"_

"_Not yet," Shepard said. "Play the rest." _

"And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

_"Okay," Shepard said. She leaned her chin on folded fingers and added, "A woman's voice. So he's not working alone." _

_ "No, I guess not," Garrus conceded. _

_ "If nothing else, it clarifies that he was there at Eden Prime," Williams remarked. She leaned back in her chair, her dark eyes still pinned on the memory core. "Or that he wanted the outcome he got there. Got the bastard on that count at least." _

_ "Tali," Shepard said. "Is that all?"_

_ "I'm afraid so. I cleaned it up as best I could, but the rest wasn't salvageable at all. I'm sorry."_

_ "No. No, it's great evidence. Hell, it's our only evidence." Shepard straightened up. "We need to identify that second speaker. Vakarian?"_

_ "No clue. Sorry."_

_ Shepard smiled, lopsided. She was pale beneath the harsh flood of the office lights, and Garrus wondered if they'd taken the time to stop and sleep since they'd hurtled away from Eden Prime. "Not a problem. We've got enough at this point to take it to Udina and then straight to the Council."_

_ "You think they'll listen?" Alenko asked. _

_ "We'll make them listen. Conduit," Shepard said, musingly. "Conduit. What can he possibly mean?"_

_ "A weapon?" Williams suggested. _

_ "Maybe. A weapon. A place. Codename for an operation. Person." Shepard shook her head and grimaced. "Sorry. Talking myself in circles. Tali, can you play it again?"_

_ "Of course." _

_ Garrus listened a second time, Saren's measured tones giving way to the woman's before the static rose up and swallowed them both. "Okay. So what's a Reaper?"_

_ Shepard shrugged. "Hell if I know." _

Unevenly, his father said, "Garrus. You keep going with it. That's all you can do. What else did you get from Fedorian?"

Not what the Primarch had _said_, and Garrus understood. How he'd sat and listened – or pretended not to listen – and how his hands had tightened against the desk. How he'd mostly kept the way he'd looked at Garrus flat and disinterested. "Most of it rolled off him. Didn't shake him."

"But?"

"But talking about on-planet security did. So, he's hearing me," Garrus said. "At least I think he's beginning to. There was something else, as well."

His father leaned forward, his hands clasped over his knees. "Go on."

Almost despite himself, Garrus laughed. "You're _enjoying_ this."

"And that's funny, is it?"

Another laugh caught in his throat, half-choked and almost painful. "Sorry," he managed. "I just, you know. Reapers. Disaster. And you're sitting there like I've handed you the most interesting puzzle you've had in years."

"Don't flatter yourself," his father said drily.

"He really didn't want to talk about Saren."

"Does that surprise you?" His father leaned back against the sweep of the couch, his blue eyes narrowed and thoughtful. "At best, the situation was received here as a complete embarrassment. And you'd be dredging it all up again while demanding that Shepard's actions should be given credence."

"I didn't _demand_." Garrus frowned. "Well, maybe a little."

"You see Fedorian again, you'll need to treat the Spectre angle very carefully."

"Dad, you would say that."

"And in this case I happen to be right," his father said sharply. "Listen to me. I know what it feels like, to have the evidence and to know it inside out and to have to wait for everyone else to catch up to it."

"Yeah, I get that."

"I'm not sure you do," his father said. His voice softened slightly. "You've spent years on the inside of this. And now you're asking Fedorian to take it all at once and start dancing for you."

"Yeah," Garrus said heavily. "Okay. I get it. I just – I feel like we're running out of time. Every day I don't _do_ something is a day I've wasted."

"Which is why when you get yourself back in with Fedorian, you take it slowly and carefully and you don't let it go until he gives you something."

"Hell," Garrus muttered. "You're terrifying. Did I ever tell you that before?"

"I don't think you told me much of anything before."

Garrus clicked his mouth shut. "Alright," he conceded, to fill the maw of the silence between them, to push away the awkward uncertainty that had its claws lodged in his chest. "I guess I walked into that one."

"No, I'm sorry," his father said, and shook his head. "That was unfair."

"It's fine," Garrus said, and he knew it was more than half a lie. "How about we start putting together our next round for Fedorian, and we can argue about that instead?"

His father smiled, a quick, barely-there flash of his teeth. "Yes," he said. "That might be more productive."

"What's your advice?"

His father shifted against the couch. Eventually, he said, "What I told you before. Slow and careful. Ease up on talking about Shepard, for now. Acknowledge what she's done, but don't push it. Same with Arterius. Focus on Palaven. Security. Your taskforce ideas. Give him something real to work with, something that can get him real results if he goes through with it."

"Okay." Garrus nodded slowly. "I can do that. It's the bit about reminding him about Reapers that I'm going to have to work on."

"_Reapers," the quarian said, and straightened up. She pressed her hands together. "I can't tell you all that much, but I might be able to help."_

_Shepard glanced at her. "Go on. Anything that can help is good."_

"_I'm not really sure it means anything. But," the quarian said, and shrugged. "They're important to the geth. At least, they think they are."_

"_Okay, that part makes some sort of sense. We've got Reapers mentioned in a conversation with Saren, and we know he's been ferrying himself around the galaxy with a whole boatload of geth along for the ride." _

_Williams snorted. "Nicely put, Commander."_

_Shepard grinned crookedly. "I thought so. What else, Tali?"_

"_The geth seem to, well. Worship them."_

"_Worship?" Alenko asked. "Do they even _do_ that?"_

"_It's an equivalent behaviour," Tali said. "We would call it worship, even if they don't." _

"_Why?" Shepard asked. _

"_I'm not really sure. It's, well. What we remember about the geth is from before," she said, and her voice wavered slightly. "From before we left them in the Perseus Veil. This one that I found, I almost wasn't sure I was going to find it. I thought I was chasing rumours." _

"_I understand," Shepard said, gentler. "We're all just throwing ideas around right now. Anything that can make us look at it from a different angle is useful." _

"_They're machines," Tali said. "At least, the geth think they're machines. And that they're very old."_

"_Okay. Thanks, Tali." Shepard settled back against her chair. "I'll contact Udina and keep you all updated." _

* * *

><p>Incarceration, Shepard thought, was a stifling, tedious way to waste time. She had too many hours alone with her thoughts and the twisting, needling knowledge that she was fucking <em>stuck<em>. She'd counted those hours until eventually they'd rolled into days, until she'd driven herself close to furious wondering where the hell her patience had crawled off to.

She kicked the sheets aside and swung her feet onto the floor. In the tiny shower cubicle, she shucked the shorts and vest off and stood beneath the scalding blast of the water until the top of her shoulders prickled uncomfortably. Back in the strangling quiet of the cell, she toweled her hair mostly dry and winced when she blinked too much water into her eyes.

She found clean fatigues and yanked them on and made herself smooth the creases and line the buttons up properly. She turned the same terse attention to the boots and their laces and the grey folds of the immaculate combat pants above. _Small things_, she thought. Small things to fill the endless slow drag of the daylight. Small things to keep her thoughts occupied, to keep them from wandering and wondering.

She spent sixteen minutes watching the sun rise between patches of cloud. Another ten she wasted on staring down at the green spread of the gardens below. The arching shapes of the trees were changing slightly, she noticed, thickening with leaves and glossy.

The buzz of the comm at the door startled her, and she jolted upright. Six steps took her to the door, and she hit the keypad. "Yeah?"

"Shepard. You awake?"

"Yes," she said, and bit back the urge to snap something sardonic. _But he was just a kid_, she remembered, one of the poor bastards who got corridor detail too many early mornings. "I'm up and decent. What is it?"

"Got a visitor. Okay?"

She frowned. "I wasn't told to expect anyone."

"He's come with clearance from Councilor Anderson."

"Oh," Shepard said. "Okay. Send him in, I guess."

"Okay. Back from the door, Shepard."

"Moving," she said, and stepped away. It made sense – she knew damn well it made sense – and every time it happened it lanced into her. She stayed in the centre of the cell, hands flat at her sides, and her shoulders deliberately loose.

The door swung inwards. Her visitor strode in, clad in Alliance colours, and out of ingrained habit, Shepard noted the bars on his shoulders and the way he was walking, all insouciant poise.

"Commander Shepard?"

"Just Shepard," she retorted. "Unless you really didn't know?"

"I did know," he answered mildly. "James Vega. Good to meet you finally."

Surprising herself, Shepard grinned. "Nice to meet you." She shook his hand and asked, "So how'd you get this illustrious posting?"

"Recommended, actually."

"Right." She jerked her chin at the chair. "Sit down, if you want."

He did, sinking onto the chair and sitting with his hands flat on his knees. "Anderson pointed me in your direction."

"Why? To see if I'm eating properly?"

"Pretty much," Vega said. "Don't know how much help I'll actually be, but I'll see you to and from hearings. You got anything you need to be heard on, least I can cut you through some of the red tape bullshit."

Shepard laughed. "Useful is good. So why'd Anderson kick you back to Earth for this?"

"He thought it might be helpful."

He was evading, and she could see it in the way he suddenly wasn't looking at her. Not censuring, Shepard shrugged. "Fair enough."

"Course, now I got to ask the stupid questions."

"What, like whether I'm being treated nicely enough?"

"Yeah," Vega answered. "And whether I can get you anything. And yeah, the answer to beer and pizza is no."

Shepard grinned. "Books."

"What?"

"More books. Real books. You know, the old-fashioned kind."

"Okay, that I can do. Anything else?"

Shepard stared down at the floor, grey and metallic between her boots. "Yeah, actually. Can you up my rec hours at all?"

"I can try," Vega said. "Any particular reason, or are you just going stir-crazy in here?"

"Not sleeping well," she admitted. "Got a lot of thoughts going through my head."

"Yeah. Okay. That all?"

"How about a way out of here?"

He pushed up to his feet and grinned. "Yeah, wish I could help you there, Commander."

"Right," Shepard said wryly. "What else you got to keep you occupied down here?"

"A nice shiny armoury for me to go through. As much rec and range time as I care to put myself through. There's even a great little smoky bar a couple of blocks away."

"Yeah. Now you're just being cruel, Vega."

"Sorry," he said, and sounded entirely unrepentant. "Take care of yourself, Commander."

She nodded, and after he'd left, the door snapping closed on his heels, the silence slithered back. She checked the window, and the slanting sunlight. She sat on the bed again and flopped backwards onto the sheets. She lasted there a few heartbeats, glaring up at the bland grey ceiling, before she was shoving up to her feet and pacing again. She stopped at the window again, and wondered if the vivid spill of the sunlight would last as long as it usually seemed to.

* * *

><p>Garrus glowered at the datapad between his hands and wondered if it might helpfully change on its own.<p>

"Alright," his father said, from where he was sitting stiff-backed near the window. "Go over it again."

"We've done it twice."

"Yes, and I'm intending to take this back to the Primarch tomorrow, and you're coming with me. You have to get yourself sounding like this is the most important thing you've ever said."

"Isn't it?" Garrus sighed. "Sorry. I was just hoping that maybe he'd ask us back."

"When we can do the legwork instead?"

"Hah." Garrus slumped back against the couch. He was tired, he realised, tired in a grinding, frantic way that had nothing to do with running around too much and everything to do with how his thoughts kept turning over, turning over and never quite letting him go. He'd slept badly, the past five days, and he'd woken each blazing morning to the lurching, desperate hope that he'd get called back in, that he'd be asked in to just talk it through and explain some more.

"Okay," Garrus said in surrender. "Make me talk about Spectres."

"Slower than last time," his father said. "Last time all you told me was how much you hate Saren Arterius."

"That wasn't _all_ I said."

"If I was Fedorian, that's all I would've _let_ you say."

"Okay. Okay." He dropped the datapad onto the table. He steeled himself, and said, "I'm ready."

He made himself sit still for it, each of his father's exasperatingly difficult questions. Coming at everything from viciously oblique angles and he _knew_ it was helping, that he needed it, but it still rankled. He wanted to snarl that his word and Shepard's word should be _fucking enough_ because they'd both been there and they'd seen it all.

Saren and Shepard and he wrestled with himself and shoved _both_ of them aside and heard himself say something about Palaven security.

"Keep going."

Numbers and supply lists and a few names his father had pulled out from current government operatives and he forced his voice even.

"And if it doesn't work?"

"Then I take the responsibility and the fall." Garrus bared his teeth in a ragged grin. "Not like I have much of a reputation left to worry about."

"Leave out that last comment," his father said.

"I was joking."

"You weren't." His father straightened up. "Alright. That'll do for now."

"Thanks," Garrus muttered.

His father stood, pushing up to his feet in one smooth motion. "That was better."

"Better?"

"Better. Garrus?"

Garrus closed his eyes. "Yeah, I know. I wavered too much on the part about how many operatives I need."

"Not that. I got a message from Solana this morning."

Garrus swallowed. "And?"

"And she'll be here tonight, if you want to see her."

He battened down the stupid urge to growl about how he'd never said he didn't want to, about how this was venomous and prodding just for the hell of it. "Yeah," he said. "That'd be great."

He waited out the afternoon, going over his reports again and again, and four hours later, he'd amended the last half of them twice. He'd helped his father in the kitchen again, and they'd both wasted an hour talking about nothing more consequential than armour and omni-tool specs. The sudden jolt of the comm button startled him, even though he'd been expecting it. _Been expecting it for too long_, and he was halfway to his feet before he even thought about it.

He hit the keypad, and when the door slid open, whatever he wanted to say dried up in his mouth. "Hey," Garrus said. "Sol. You okay?"

"You're actually here," she retorted. She paused, one hand caught on the doorframe. "I wondered."

"Nice."

"What did you expect?"

"I don't know," he said honestly. He looked at her, wiry and _slightly_ shorter than he was and staring at him with fierce blue eyes. Her face was all brash angles, as he remembered, striped with blue beneath her eyes. "I really don't know. You want to come in?"

Solana tipped her head to one side. Her gaze raked over him, scrutinizing. "Yeah, alright. Garrus?"

"What?"

"You actually going to talk to me this time?"

"Yeah," he said, quietly. "I will."


	32. Motes

_Such a big thank-you to everyone who's following this story. I'm hoping to get back into a steadier pace of uploading now that Christmas craziness is over. Bioware owns nearly everything and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty-Two – Motes**_

The city shimmered beneath the dark lid of the night sky. Sundown had brought rain, heavy and ribboning the high windows. Garrus stared over his sister's shoulder and watched the tracking marks of it, thick and steely and lit silver as they slid.

"That's a hell of a story, Garrus," Solana said, and her voice was hushed. She shifted where she sat across from him, her hands flat on her knees.

She looked older, Garrus thought, and wondered why the thought swam oddly through his mind. Older and sharper and neatly clad in dark blue clothes, falling impeccably on her wiry frame.

They'd eaten, slowly and mostly quietly, the silence cut only when Solana asked their father something, or when Garrus tried to say something that he hoped desperately wouldn't sound as lost as he felt.

They'd talked easily and softly, his father and his sister, and he'd found himself just sitting and listening, his eyes on the table. The small, inconsequential queries of those who already half-knew the response, and because that was hardly the point, regardless. The words had rolled between them, effortless and unhurried and understood, and Garrus had wondered how long it had been since he'd heard either of them speak quite so easily.

Afterwards, his father had left them alone with the carafe and the slow pattering of the rain against the high windows.

_"C-Sec, Garrus? Really?" _

_ "Yeah," he answered. "I think so." _

_ "You think so," Solana echoed, mildly censuring. She settled herself against the windowsill, her long legs hanging idly over the edge. "Citadel's a long way from here."_

_ He was sitting on his bed, booted feet planted on the floor. "Yeah, I know." _

_ "You actually going to tell me why?"_

_ "Why what?"_

_ "_Garrus_," she said heavily. "Come on. Spill it. Really why you want to do this."_

_ "Okay." He nodded slowly. "It's not just because of Dad." _

_ "But?"_

_ "Okay, so that's part of it," he admitted. "But it's because, well. I think I could be good at it."_

_ Solana's head lifted, her blue gaze settling on him. "Yeah," she said, softer. "I can see that." _

_ "I just figure that there's a lot going on that needs sorted out," he said, and the words spilled off his tongue, hesitantly honest. "Military was one thing. You go where they send you. You do what they want you to do." _

_ "But," she said, her words joining his. "It's all really just about following orders."_

_ "Yeah. It is. And that's okay, sometimes. I just," he said, and shrugged. He looked up, his hands knotted. "I just think maybe I could do some good this way." _

_ "I get that." She swung herself off the sill. Three paces took her to the edge of the bed and she sat beside him, her head tilted up at him. "And, you know. I think you'll be good at it."_

_ "Can I get that in writing?"_

_ "Hah." She nudged him roughly. "You got everything organized?"_

_ "Yeah, I think so. You going to be okay here?"_

_ "We'll manage," she said. "Hey, Garrus. You know something?"_

_ "What?" he asked, his tone pitched deliberately insouciant. _

_ "I think I'll miss you." _

_ "Yeah," he confessed. "I'll miss you too, Sol. You'll message me?"_

_ "Yeah, whenever I can. I ship out in ten days, so I'm around a lot before then. After that, I'll let you know my assignments as I get them." _

_ "What do you know so far?"_

_ "Completely covert," she answered, utterly deadpan. _

_ Garrus laughed. "Right." _

_ "I actually don't know much yet," she conceded. "First six weeks is off-planet. And not colony work, either." _

_ "You'll do fine," he said. "Not as good as I did, but you'll do fine."_

_ She growled at him, and he blocked the swipe she aimed at his shoulder. "Sure," she responded drily. "That's what you think." _

_ "It is. You want to help me get my things together?"_

_ "What if I say no?"_

_ Garrus laughed. "You know, I have no idea." _

_ "I'm too nice to you," she muttered, but he saw the sudden, amused light in her eyes. _

_ "Thanks, Sol."_

_ "Don't push it." _

_ They idled over it, filling the sundries locker first, Solana insisting that he probably did not need all the vids he'd stuffed down between impeccably folded clothes. Garrus genially ignored her and grabbed another one anyway. The gleaming pieces of his armour went delicately stacked into the gear locker, alongside the broken-down pieces of his sniper rifle. _

_ "Like they'll let you use that monster of a weapon on the Citadel."_

_ "They might," he protested, and slotted his spare pistol alongside. _

_ "In your dreams, brother." _

_ "I like that rifle."_

_ "You love that rifle," she corrected, gently mocking. _

_ He finished up with the ammo packs and the weapon oil, and afterwards, he slouched on the edge of the bed and she sat on one of the lockers. The evening was running away from them, he realised, the sky darkening. _

_ "Hey, Sol?"_

_ "Yeah?"_

_ He regarded her for a long, thoughtful moment. "Can I ask you something?"_

_ "Shoot."_

_ "Something actually slightly serious."_

_ She tipped her head to one side. "You _trying_ to scare me, Garrus?"_

_ He snorted. "No. Can you, ah. Look after them?"_

_ "Mom and Dad, you mean?" Her gaze fixed on him, blue and unwavering. "Getting it the wrong way round, aren't we?"_

_ "You know what I mean." _

_ "Yeah, I do." Her teeth flashed in a half-smile, the sharp angles of her mouth shifting slightly. "I'll let you know how they are."_

_ "Thanks, Sol. I appreciate it." _

He remembered sitting in the cramped white box that had been his first C-Sec office, his fingers flying over his console as he threw Solana some bragging recreation of a case gone right, or one gone not-quite-wrong. He wondered if he'd stopped first, or if she had, but terribly, he realised he wasn't sure either way.

She was still looking at him, steadily and not with rancor, and he supposed she was turning it all over in her head, the Reapers and the _Normandy_ and Omega.

"Garrus?" Solana asked, softly.

"Yes," Garrus said, lifting his head. "And you know the worst part? It's all true."

"_All_ of it?"

"Sorry," Garrus said, and shrugged.

She exhaled sharply. Her gaze skittered past him and back to the table. "You want another drink?"

"Yeah, thanks."

She topped up his glass and passed it across, and he distracted himself with the first few inches of the wine.

"Well," she said. "I guess I'll come right out and say it. There's no way anything I'm going to say can top your story."

"I think that's the first time I've ever heard you admit that."

"Funny." She hesitated, her eyes on the glass clasped between her hands. "How's Dad been?"

He opened his mouth to say something sardonic, saw the taut line of her shoulders, and changed his mind. "Okay," he said honestly. "He's been listening to me."

"You been listening to him?"

"Trying to," he admitted, and the words sawed between them, truthful and frustrated all at once. "This thing with Fedorian. He listens, and then he treats me like a rookie, and I _know_ he's right." Helplessly, he shrugged. "I, ah. It's okay."

"Good," she said pointedly.

"Tell me what you've been doing," he said, mostly to veer her words away from him and onto someone else, _something_ else.

She tipped her head to one side. "Nothing nearly as exciting as getting shot by a gunship."

"Alright," he said mildly.

"Just the usual. We're hitting smuggling rings, or trying to."

"Getting anywhere?"

"Yeah." She gulped at the wine. "Too slow for my liking."

"Now you sound like me," he remarked.

"Hah. Yes. It's good work, when it works. If that makes sense."

"It does," he said, and he understood. The sudden, jolting bursts of action that meant you might be getting something done – and hoping like hell it was the _right_ something – and the rest of the shipboard hours dripping away so slow you thought you might go mad with the impatience of it all.

She was still talking, the tiny details of staccato watch rosters and the irritating crawl of sluggish mornings and the first time the ship had slewed up alongside the vessel her CO had pegged for a smuggling outfit. Garrus leaned back against the slope of the couch and found himself listening, easily and half-laughing as she told him she'd hurtled around a corner and smack into three krogan.

"Frightened the hell out of myself," Solana said, her teeth parting in a sudden grin. "Of course, then you figure that you're actually enjoying it as well."

Garrus laughed. "There's got to be _some_ reason why we're so crazy. Did it work out?"

"Yeah, that time. We got ourselves a nice big heap of evidence from the ship."

"And?"

"And," she said, and shrugged. "And not much else to go on after that."

"Picking up the small pieces and putting them back together is how it works."

"Elder's wisdom," Solana commented wryly. "Thank you."

"Sorry." He drained the wine and reached for the carafe. He filled his glass and then hers and straightened up in time to see her regarding him strangely. "What?"

"This is some kind of revenge for that time I drank you under the table six years ago, isn't it?"

"You didn't drink me under the table. I out-paced myself."

"Whatever makes you sleep better." Solana wrapped her hands around the glass. She was _faltering_, he saw, weighing whatever it was she wanted to say. "So," she said, eventually, lightly. "You going to be around long?"

"Not sure," he answered honestly. "I need to get this thing with the Primarch sorted."

"And if it works out?"

"Then I get to make myself useful." He stared at the wine, crisp and gleaming. His thoughts were plying themselves apart, he realised, turning fuzzy and indistinct and suddenly he wasn't sure if he was perturbed or startled. "Until," he added. "The Reapers turn up."

"You really believe it."

"I _saw_ it," he said ruefully. "Them. Whichever."

"I don't know what to say."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Solana said. She shrugged, her gaze flitting from her hands to him and back again. "If you were anyone else, I'd wonder what the hell you've been taking these past few years."

"But?"

"But I have this awful feeling that I believe you."

Garrus scowled. "Do you know how much that sounded like an accusation?"

She laughed. "Sorry." Her expression softened as she scrutinized him again. "You going to need any help?"

"Sure, if you don't mind me ordering you around."

"I said _help_, not _yes, please draft me into your cause_."

Garrus laughed, properly, until it seemed that his chest was too tight. "I had to ask."

"Sure you did."

"Did you mean it?" he asked.

"Look." She reached for the carafe, long fingers curled around the neck of it. "I'm with my unit. I can't make you any kind of promise. But, you know. If I'm around. And if you need anything."

He watched as she tipped the carafe up. The wine sloshed clumsily, and Garrus swallowed back the instinctive urge to say something deliberately mocking. Instead, he waited until she'd straightened away from the table again.

"Yes," he said. "I'd really like that. If that's okay with you."

"_Garrus_," Solana said, and shot him a wry glare. "Can we _please_ stop dancing around each other? I said I'd help. I mean it. That's it. Okay?"

"Okay."

"You come stampeding in from some dark corner of the galaxy after I've barely heard that you've been alive for months, and then I get to hear that you and Dad are setting out to kick the Primarch until he starts moving where you want."

"Sort of," Garrus said helplessly.

"You come in here with half your face torn off and you expect me to swallow this crazy story about Reapers and them coming back and you expect me to hear it as if it's the most normal thing to hear," she said, her voice hitching slightly.

Garrus swallowed against the heavy, heady taste of the wine. "I'm sorry," he said, very quietly. "I've been on the other side of it too long."

"Yeah, I get that. And if it had been any other story, then it would've been fine."

"I know." He hesitated, hoping like hell he was about to choose the right words. "And, you know," he added drily. "Shot off, not torn off. And it was my markings. Not my face. Mostly."

She glowered at him for a long, furious moment before her shoulders sagged. Then she was laughing, as painfully as he had, the wineglass chiming against the table when she laid it down. "Okay," Solana said, raggedly. "That point you can have."

"I'm honoured."

"You should be."

He hooked up the carafe and tipped it questioningly. "Your unit. What are they like?"

She waited until he'd topped up the glasses again. "You really want to know?"

"Yes," Garrus answered honestly. "I really do."

"Okay." She leaned forward, her arms crossed over her knees. "I guess neither of us is going anywhere right now."

* * *

><p>Tali gripped the edge of the table between gloved fingers and briefly wondered if she could wish them all away. <em>All of them<em>, she thought, even Raan where she sat beside her, her head tilted and her hands elegantly clasped.

"Has this," she said, and swallowed. Her throat felt packed with sand. "Has any of this been taken to the rest of the fleet?"

"Not yet," Admiral Daro'Xen answered. In concise, clipped tones, she added, "We feel that it is imperative to have a solid plan of attack before we advance. The rest of the Flotilla will know in time."

Tali wrestled with the urge to shove herself up and away from the table, up and away from the whole room, these stifling four walls and the way they were all looking at her. Expectantly and staring and she wondered just _what_ she was meant to say.

The days had rolled past slowly, uneventfully, and most morning shifts she had accompanied Raan to these meetings, talking to them about geth, the geth she had seen in her wanderings. Picking apart the details of the geth she had encountered on the snowy slopes of Noveria, those she had seen on Therum, and later, on Ilos and at the Citadel. Sharply, she remembered Xen's queries, prodding and asking again and again.

_Specifications and speed and agility and how did their thoughts mesh and merge and how _certain_ could she be? _

The questions had slid into stories, swapped and retold, piecing together what might have happened on Rannoch, what could have happened on Rannoch.

"I'm not sure," Tali said, and some part of her loathed the way her voice would not stay steady, would not stay stern. "I'm not sure this is the best course of action."

"Why not?" Xen demanded.

"Just because we know more of the geth than we have ever known before is not the right reason to go back to Rannoch." She dragged down a shaking breath. "When we spoke of Rannoch, it was all to do with geth movements. Observation. Knowledge. And now you're all telling me that we're going _back?_"

"Tali," Raan said, gently.

"No, please. Just listen. I'm not certain this is the right course of action. Not now."

"Then when should it be?" Han'Gerrel's voice rose across hers, flat and unhurried. "Your information was a great help. The time you've spent either in direct combat with the geth or else tracking their movements otherwise has proven useful."

"Yes, and I understand that," Tali said desperately. "I'm just…there's too much else going on right now."

_The ship was quiet – it was always quiet, too quiet – and Tali sat with her back to a console bank. Three levels down and the silence was muffling, wrapping her in it, until the dreadful action of that day locked up somewhere at the back of her throat. _

Virmire_, she thought, and swallowed hard. Two days floating behind them in the blackness of space, and she wondered if she would ever be able to banish the beautiful white sand of the place from her mind. White sand and the shimmering bands of blue water that she had stared into for too long, staring down at the blurred reflection of her own outline. _

_ Virmire and they had lost Ashley and she knew that Kaidan was still in the medbay and yesterday she had seen Shepard, all pale and drained and wrung out, and looking very unlike herself. _

_ Tali rested her hands against her raised knees and tried to quell the twisting apprehension that had taken up too much room in her chest. She heard the door sliding open and did not look up. _

_ "Hey, Tali?" Shepard asked, her voice rough and sounding tired. _

_ "Down here."_

_ She heard footsteps, and then Shepard was sitting beside her, her knees lifted in almost the same way, and her arms wrapped around her shins. _

_ "How is Kaidan?" Tali asked. _

_ "Better. Well, as better as he can be. A gut shot's a nasty, untrustworthy bastard of a thing to deal with." _

_ "And you?" _

_ "Me?" Shepard exhaled sharply. "I came down here to ask about you."_

_ "You can do that too," Tali murmured. _

_ Shepard laughed, bitter and bitten-off. "I'm exhausted. I feel like I haven't stopped moving since we set down on that fucking beach."_

_ "Yes." _

_ "Hey," Shepard said, her tone lifting slightly. "You haven't been alone down here for the past two days, have you?"_

_ "No. Garrus keeps coming down. Liara as well."_

_ Shepard smiled. "Good." _

_ "I'm so sorry about Ashley."_

_ "Yeah," Shepard said, sighing the word out. "Me too."_

_ "That thing," Tali said hesitantly. _

_ "Sovereign," Shepard responded sourly, the word falling hard and angry between them. _

_ "I didn't want to believe it," Tali admitted. "I still don't."_

_ "But?"_

_ "But I know that it's real." Tali shook her head. She could feel Shepard's terse, coiled frame beside her. "You know what scares me the most?"_

_ "What?"_

_ "It means that everything's going to change. That everything already has." _

_ "Yeah, it does. But not today," Shepard said, and Tali heard her tone lightening slightly. She clasped Tali's shoulder. "Hungry?"_

_ "Yes," Tali answered, surprising herself. "I am." _

They were still waiting for her, she saw, waiting for her to speak, to say something, _anything_ to qualify the frantic way she was wrestling with her own words. All of them sitting rigid and impatient, until Raan touched her arm, her fingers firm.

"Tali," Raan said. "Something else is _always_ going on. To shy away from this chance now, when we have so much new information...it would be foolish."

"You don't know that," Tali said imploringly. "And for all the intel I've handed to you, we still have _no idea_ what it might be like down on the surface."

"And the only way to ascertain the situation is to see it," Xen cut in.

"And that's fine, to begin with," Tali retorted. She marshaled her nerves and looked directly at Xen. "Scouting parties. Slowly and carefully, we could send small scout groups down."

"Yes," Xen said coldly. "Though you will understand that such a decision would simply be the beginning of a much larger operation."

"Will I?" Tali echoed.

"Yes," Xen said again. "Help us or hinder us, but we will be taking the Flotilla back to Rannoch."

* * *

><p>Shepard drove gloved hands against the heavy bag until she became aware of the slow, building ache between her shoulders. She ignored it and sped up her rhythm, snapping clenched fists against it. She blew sweat from damp lips and settled her stance again, balancing her feet a little wider.<p>

_Halfway through the day_, she thought. Halfway through the day and already she was wondering how the hell she was going to keep her thoughts from wandering once she was ordered back to the cell. The days were sliding into each other, too fast and too slowly at the same time, nights and mornings buckling into each other, and sometimes she found herself counting them wrong.

Angrily, she pirouetted and slammed both fists into the bag. It lurched and swung under the impact, and she sent it arcing away again.

The rec room was too empty, flat with silence and the grey windowless walls. Some mornings she'd found herself sharing the space with other prisoners – _other detainees_, she thought, and bit back a grim smile – and the clanking sound of treadmills and weights and footsteps _almost_ convinced her that it was alright.

Until, of course, she'd nod to the guard at the door and she'd be walked back to her cell, and the door would shut, and she'd be hemmed in by the stifling quiet again.

_"You know," Garrus said, from where he sat on the bench, idly watching. "You could stop beating the crap out of that poor punching bag and just come and spar with me instead." _

_ She grinned at him from beneath the sweat-streaked mop of her hair. "Like that's been working so far." _

_ "Fair point." _

_ She lasted another twelve minutes before the impatience won. She let the bag swing to a halt and shot him a grin. "Okay. You've convinced me."_

_ "I'm persuasive like that." _

_ She waited until he was standing, deceptively loose-limbed. She launched at him first, easing her weight from one foot to the other and diving beneath the arch of his arms. She shoved at the solid wall of his chest and darted away as fast. His laughter followed her, and then the pressure of his hands as he caught her and spun her against him. _

_ She sank back against him and shivered when she felt his breath on the back of her neck, erratic and hot. "You see?" Shepard murmured, and did not move. "This is why we shouldn't spar." _

_ "Mmm," Garrus conceded, and nuzzled at the soft patch behind her ear. "You might be right." _

_ She twisted around in his arms, flattening her hands against his chest. She looked up in the sharp angles of his face and discovered that she was smiling, widely and unfettered. His hand found the side of her face, long fingers stroking down to her jaw. _

_ "You look," Garrus said thickly. "Absolutely wonderful right now."_

_ "I'm still dressed, you realise."_

_ He laughed, and it shook through them both. "You know what I mean." _

_ "Yeah," she said. "I do." She cupped her hands over his shoulders and coaxed his head down so that she could kiss his forehead and the uneven, rough place where his scars met the rest of his face. "So," she added gently. "Did you actually want to spar?"_

_ "Yeah," Garrus answered. "For now." _

They had, she remembered, spinning and turning until he'd ducked under her guard and landed a hefty stroke that had swept her onto her back. She'd shrieked and tugged him down after her and somehow they'd dragged each other back up to her quarters before she pushed him down onto the floor again.

Shepard crashed both hands against the bag until she felt the drag of the sweat beneath her fatigues, the crawl of the tiredness in the backs of her legs. She stepped away, automatically reaching for the straps along the back of the gloves.

She paused at the door, hands lightly clasped at her sides.

The guard lifted his head, disinterested and bland. "You all done, Shepard?"

She watched as he keyed the door open. "Yeah," she answered, and the word felt thick. "I'm all done."

* * *

><p>Garrus woke, the grey fog of his dreams retreating slowly. He sat up, the sheets catching around his hips. He dug his fingers into the fabric, tortuously aware of Shepard's absence.<p>

_The sheets empty of her, the room empty of her, his arms empty of her. _

The white walls were already awash with the hammering flood of the sunlight. He shucked the covers off and dressed quickly, yanking his fatigues on with brusque, methodical movements. He stood at the high windows, his thoughts flipping over on themselves. The days were flitting away from him too fast, too viciously fast, and he wondered how the city might look beneath the emerging shadows of the Reapers. _Might_, he thought sourly. _Would. _

Garrus pressed his hands against the clear surface of the glass and remembered the dank, twisting fetor of the tunnels on Feros, wet and rotten and pulsing with the awful thing that had been the Thorian. He remembered the asari, replicated again and again at a flicker of the thing's thoughts, and how she had talked of the Cipher.

_"Commander?" Alenko knelt, his voice uneven. "Shepard? Come on. Shepard, can you hear me?"_

_ She was waxen, her hands clenching hard against the streaked ground. Alenko shoved his shoulder against hers, bolstering her. _

_ "She breathing?" Garrus demanded. _

_ "Shallow. Fast and shallow." Alenko lifted her slightly. "Shepard?" _

_ "Still here," she grated. She wrenched herself upright, her face ribboned with sweat. Her eyes were glazed, distant. _

_ "What did you see?" Alenko asked, quietly. _

_ "Flames," Shepard said, her voice hollow. "I saw flames." _

Garrus stalked away from the window and through the door, forcing his thoughts flat and as close to calm as he could muster. He discovered Solana in the main room, her gaze pinned on the main vidscreen.

"Dad around?"

"No," she answered without turning. "Said he'll be back later."

Absently, he watched as she flicked to another news channel. "Anything about Earth?"

Solana twisted around in the chair. "Earth? No. Why?"

He shrugged. "Just curious."

"Well, it's still there, if that's what you're asking." She searched his face, and when he couldn't quite make himself laugh, she shook her head. "I'm sorry. Bad joke."

"It's okay." He was half aware of the news report, something about backed-up transport lanes slogging their way to the Citadel.

"You hungry?" Solana asked, jolting him out of the welter of his thoughts.

"You offering?"

"Only if you help," she responded.

Before he could retort, his omni-tool flared. Without thinking, he punched up the message screen, already assuming that it'd be Tali – days ago, she'd told him how she'd gotten herself mechanic's duty on some quiet deck on Raan's ship – and found himself staring at two lines of orders, framed by government brackets and marked classified.

"Shit," Garrus mumbled. "He's gone for it."

"What?"

"He's _gone_ for it," he repeated. He swallowed back a sudden, galvanizing surge of exhilaration.

"The Primarch?" Solana scrambled upright. "What's he said?"

"Well, one of his officials."

"_Garrus_," she said. "Stop screwing around and tell me."

He motioned her closer, so she could see the livid orange words.

_Vakarian. Initial budget and requisitions details in by tomorrow morning. Keep it quiet and get it done_.

Solana thumped his arm gently. "Nicely done. Or should I say nicely argued?"

"It's just a go-ahead. Doesn't mean it'll be easy."

"Don't let yourself get worked up or anything."

"I am," he protested. He collapsed the screen, and for a long moment he stood there, his tongue pressing at the back of his teeth and his heartbeat lurching. "Sorry. I just…yeah."

She nudged him. "So. Want help with your planning?"

His head jerked up. "Really?"

"What else am I doing today? Sitting around and waiting while you start saving Palaven?"

Garrus laughed, and he wondered if it sounded as raw as it felt. "Okay. I'll message Dad about it and you can start thinking about what I could do with twenty-five operatives."

Briskly, she nodded. She was halfway across the room before she paused, her blue gaze settling on him. "Garrus, what happens after this?"

"We take it to the Primarch."

"Not what I meant."

"If this works," he said. "Then we have some chance of hitting back against the Reapers when they get here. I don't know how much of a chance, but something."

"And what will you be doing?"

Garrus opened his mouth to tell her something teasingly insincere about taking down Reapers between shift breaks. His fingers curled against his palms, unaccountably trembling, and instead he said, "Earth. I need to get back to Earth."

Mercifully, she did not push him, and he wondered what it was that she was reading in his face. "Okay," Solana said. "Twenty-five operatives, yeah?"

Some of the tension seeped from his shoulders. "Yeah. To start with. If we can ease it down a few, that's fine too."

"Okay."

He watched until she was sitting at the console, her fingers darting across the glowing keypad. "Sol?"

"What?" she asked, half-turning.

"I'm sorry," Garrus said, and the words hovered, glass-thin and just as tenuous. "I know I said I'd keep in touch. I know I didn't."

"You know, Garrus," she replied, her eyes softening slightly. "You really want to thrash this out, we can do that later. Okay?"

"You're excited," he said, accusingly.

"And you're not?"

Helplessly, he reached for the spare chair and spun it in front of the desk. He sat, flicking his omni-tool on in the same motion. "Yeah, alright," he said, and could not quite suppress the restless needling of the anticipation that had burrowed itself somewhere in his chest. "I'll give you that one."


	33. Precipice

_The biggest thank-you to everyone who's interested in and following this story - thank you all so much. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty-Three: Precipice **_

The days rolled into weeks, relentless and far too fast. Most mornings brought brisk updates, and Garrus picked through their details as quickly as he dared, scanning comm chatter reports and checking supply lists and always half-expecting to see _something_. Today's first-watch reports showed nothing stirring outside the fleet that ringed Palaven, and even less beyond.

He flicked the console screen off and leaned back.

He'd spent weeks cajoling and prompting and prodding, reminding his operatives to check in _at least_ twice a day, whether they were on supply runs or sitting in on planetside defense meetings or combing through deep-space comm traffic. He'd wrangled them a set of small offices in one of the government buildings – partly so he could claim official sanction to his team, and partly so they'd have easier access to local intel networks – and he'd already managed to clutter his desk.

_Nothing_, he thought, and glared at the blank screen. Nothing past the usual signs of military exercises and commercial shipping lanes and the unending clamour of the intel that was streamed into the defense department. How long, he wondered, until Fedorian saw that his results were unchanging, painfully static? How long before he was ordered away from the operation and told to keep his unsettling ideas firmly to himself?

They were flitting along on the Primarch's word, and Garrus knew damn well that enough empty results could just as easily have him back to having no way forward but waiting.

Across the room, the door swung inwards. "Vakarian, you busy?"

Bartus, Garrus realised, and in earlier than planned. Garrus pushed up to his feet and answered, "Not at all. Anything to add to your report?"

"Not today. You?"

"No," Garrus admitted. "Nothing moving."

Bartus paused, green eyes leveled at Garrus. "You really want to be right about this?"

Garrus laughed, his breath escaping in a juddering rush. "Hah. No, I guess not. I just figure we've been at this for weeks."

"You know, Vakarian. You can keep going on being wrong about this. That would suit me fine."

"Thanks," Garrus muttered, without much censure.

Fifteen days ago, he'd added Bartus to his team list after the suggestion came through from another of his military-background operatives. He'd almost balked at it, he remembered, before he'd reined in his temper and silently – _furiously_ - reminded himself that he'd been away. Away for long enough that he no longer knew who he needed to speak to, who could be useful and who wouldn't be.

"Got you the files you asked for," Bartus said.

"You have to fight them for it?"

"A little," Bartus replied. He shrugged. "I had a brief look over them. Menae's on constant alert."

"Yeah, we knew that." Garrus leaned against the edge of his desk, frowning slightly. "You see any immediate improvements we can ask for?"

"As of right now?" Bartus passed him a small, sleek disc. "Not much."

"What's your first impression?"

"My first impression changes depending on whether your Reaper theory is right or not."

Garrus laughed. "Let's assume it is."

"Then Menae is a solid defensible position, as it always has been. Supply lines there run as smoothly as anywhere."

"And if it's cut off from Palaven?"

"Stockpiles are good. Better than good. Main bases fully staffed."

"Okay." Garrus nodded slowly. "And the problem?"

"The problem is, if you're right, I'm not sure how that's going to help us."

"I know."

"You're talking about buying time," Bartus said roughly. "I guess that's the real problem."

"All we can do is prepare," Garrus said, and heard his own words fall hollow and thin.

"Yes," Bartus said. His head turned slightly, his eyes flickering, and Garrus wondered what it was he'd wanted to say instead. "I understand."

"I know. Dismissed," Garrus added.

Left alone, Garrus slotted the disc in and waited while the console screen flickered. _Should've said something else_, he thought. Something about how they'd get it done, how they would always get it done, because the fleets were circling Palaven and _they knew_ nothing could punch through them.

The screen resolved into supply lists and weapons details and headings for base maps and Garrus forced himself to comb through them slowly. _Tunnels and curling labyrinths beneath the moon's surface and patches of it shielded _and he was almost certain he'd half-known this. He sighed and leaned forward, one hand reaching for the keypad again. Two more hours unraveled away from him before he checked in with the operative he had stationed out on one of the dreadnoughts, floating somewhere above Palaven.

"All normal?" Garrus asked.

"Yes, sir," came the indistinct, crackling reply.

"Good. Signing off."

Menae command base offered up the same vaguely positive response, and so did the four other operatives he'd placed through the main sweep of the defensive fleet. A few minutes tapping out messages had his typical report from his deep space comm observers, that all was the same, quiet and still and unremarkable.

The city glowed beneath the dark bowl of the night sky by the time he keyed himself into his father's apartment. Beneath the crisp, pressed lines of his clothes, he was tired. He stumbled into his father halfway into the kitchen and muttered something that was half an apology, half a question.

"No, I'm fine," his father answered. "You?"

Garrus latched one hand against the doorframe. "Yeah. Fine. I mean, there was nothing again today. _Nothing_."

"Garrus." His father motioned him through to the table, dappled with the bright spots of the lights above. "Sometimes nothing can be a good thing."

"I know." He sat heavily, one elbow glancing sharply against the edge of the table. "I'm running out of patience."

"And you're hoping the Reapers are doing the same?"

"_No._" Garrus swallowed, and waited until his shoulders had slackened slightly. "Sorry."

"Anything I can do?"

"No," Garrus said. "But, yeah. Thank you. For asking."

"Hungry?" his father asked, his tone bland and unruffled.

"I'll help. Wait," Garrus added, and shoved up to his feet. "I need to go message Sol."

His father tipped his head to one side, blue eyes slightly speculative.

"What?" Garrus demanded. The absurd urge to _explain _surged up in his throat, the need to say that they'd almost agreed, that he knew she'd want to know about Menae, that she'd want something to read when she switched out of shift change in the morning.

"Nothing," his father answered, softer. "Take your time."

He filled the message with all the absurd, frustrating detail of the past week – _meetings and that one report that he'd almost sent to the wrong branch of intel and even that floundering, strange moment when he'd found himself thinking that the morning sunlight was too fierce_ – and by the time he'd added a handful of questions, some of the gut-deep tension in him had leached away.

Later, leaning over his half-empty plate, Garrus said, "Can I ask your opinion on something?"

"Go ahead."

"How would you broach the possibility of evacuation? If you were talking to Fedorian."

His father leaned back, his expression shifting slightly. "You mean if _you_ were talking to Fedorian."

"Yeah."

"First question I have is, do _you_ think it will have to happen?"

Garrus shrugged. "I don't know. I don't want it to. I've just been sitting in that office now for too many days thinking and thinking."

"And?"

He pressed his hands flat against the table. "And if I'm right – if Shepard's right – it won't be war. Not really. We'll think it's war, but it'll be them, pushing faster than us and harder than us."

"Your problem is the same one you've always had," his father said. "You can't prove it until it happens."

"And when it happens, who knows what I'll be able to do." Garrus sighed and flicked at the rim of the plate. "Sorry. That wasn't the most cheerful thing to ask."

"Can't help where your thoughts go," his father said. He leaned back, his shoulders settling against the chair.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Talk to Fedorian about it. That's all you can do."

"Yeah." Garrus mustered up a brittle, edged smile. "I'll put it on my list. You know something?"

"A few things," his father responded, and Garrus wondered when it was he'd started sounding like that again, tolerant and irreverent and actually _teasing_.

_Maybe_, he thought. _Maybe it hadn't really changed. Maybe it had just gotten buried under everything else and maybe he hadn't really let himself hear it. _

"Funny," Garrus said automatically. "I feel like I don't know what I'm doing."

"That's ridiculous." His father's voice sharpened.

"Okay. That didn't come out right." He searched through the jumble of his thoughts, wondered why he was still hesitating, and said, "I know what I'm doing right now."

"But?"

"It's going to change. _Everything_ is going to change, and I'm sitting here with a taskforce full of operatives who seem to think that I know what I'm talking about." The words rushed on, honest and sickening. "And I do, I suppose, but not like they think. I'll be making it up as I go along, and the last time I did that, the only one of my team who didn't get killed was the fucking traitor who got us into the mess in first place."

He heard the small sound of his father shifting in the chair.

"I can't tell you to stop thinking about Omega," his father said. "That's yours to work through."

"I thought I had."

"These things stay with us," his father said. He laced his hands together on the table, his gaze locking with Garrus'. "For longer than we want and for longer than we ever think they will."

"Yes," Garrus conceded. "They do."

"May I ask you something?"

He nodded. "Of course."

"You could have come home."

"That's not a question," Garrus managed. The inside of his mouth was sandy, he realised, and his father was _still_ looking at him, relentless and unyielding and patient as stone. "Dad, everything was different. The Citadel was, well. And then it came in that Shepard was – Shepard was _gone_ – and I lasted out another few weeks and then I walked away."

"Omega," his father said, and it still wasn't quite a question, Garrus thought.

"Somewhere to get lost in. Somewhere to," he said, his breathing hitching. "I don't know, Dad. I didn't come home because I thought I couldn't."

His father's gaze flicked away from him then, jumping to the table and the wall behind Garrus' head. "I can't tell you that I understand it all. Some of it. I understand some of it."

Garrus laughed. "Yeah. I know what you mean."

"What's funny?"

"I don't know." He slouched forward, resting both elbows against the table. Another laugh caught in his throat, heavy and painful. "I think I just realised that saying _that_ was worse than having to explain the Reapers."

"Well," his father said - _too gently, Garrus noticed, gently enough that it knifed into him – _his fingers sliding against the table. "I'm not entirely sure if I should feel flattered or not."

"I'm sorry," Garrus said. Words were strange things, he thought, short and shaping empty air and suddenly he wasn't sure if was apologizing for Omega or today or the lacerating awareness that he no longer knew what tomorrow might look like.

"No need." His father moved slightly, half lifting one hand from the table before he let it drop again. He exhaled sharply, and Garrus saw it as his whole frame seemed to give way somehow, seemed to ease. "So. Did you want a drink?"

"Yeah," Garrus said. "Thanks, Dad."

* * *

><p>"Bullshit, Vega," Shepard said mildly. She slapped her next card down. "You're embellishing."<p>

"Well," he conceded. "Maybe just a little."

She grinned and glanced down at the rest of her hand, fanned between her fingers and fairly unhelpful. She was sitting cross-legged against the wall, Vega slouching opposite and his attention pinned on the cards turned upright between them.

"Just a little?"

"Hey. I _did_ break the table over that smug bastard's head."

"Everyone's been there," she said idly. She watched another card drop from his hands and swore. "Tell me you're rigging this."

"Nah. You're just losing."

Shepard laughed. "Right."

Her defeat lasted another fifteen minutes, and she endured through to the final card, smiling despite herself. She slouched back until her shoulders hit the wall and muttered, "Alright. I'll give you that one."

Vega scooped the cards up, flitting them through thick, scarred fingers. "So things are getting busy outside."

"Busy? As in a good kind of busy?"

He shrugged. "Honestly don't know, Commander. Building's full and humming with it. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Shepard said, and forced back the urge to ask and ask again until she had some detail, some tiny shard of _something_. "I do. Hey, Vega?"

"What?"

"You hear anything about anything off-planet?" She stared down at her fingers, wreathed together in her lap. "Citadel, Council?" _Palaven_, her mind supplied, and she shoved the thought back.

He paused, the cards still clamped between his hands. "Wish I could say I had, Commander."

"Didn't we have the talk about you not calling me that?"

He tipped his head to one side. "Yeah. Sorry. Habits, I guess."

"What's your take on it, Vega?"

His gaze lifted, sharpening as he thought. "No one's worried. You know what I mean? But there's a lot of people outside that door moving around. Planning, I guess."

"You want to keep me updated?"

"I can do that."

She nodded slowly. "Appreciated."

She let her head loll back against the wall, vaguely aware that her hair was brushing the inside of her collar, the thick strands digging against the nape of her neck. "You got other stuff you need to do, go ahead," Shepard said. "I promise I'm feeling well-adjusted, only slightly bored and probably unlikely to try and break myself out."

He grinned crookedly. "I'm good til lunchtime, Shepard."

"Priorities. Nice."

"Got to keep your life organized." He let the cards patter into a messy pile beside his knee. "So. The Collector base you talked about."

"What about it?"

He shrugged. "What did it look like?"

"Yeah, because I had so much time to admire the architecture." Thoughtfully, she added, "Insect hive. That's what I thought. The air was wet, the walls were wet, footing was wet. Couldn't move quietly, or not as quietly as you'd want to. Worst part was that the Collectors knew how the place worked."

"While you get to walk in blind," Vega said, his voice roughening.

"Yeah." Shepard stared at the backs of her own hands. "And they moved fast. They knew the ship, and they moved damn fast through it."

"Moved fast on the ground as well," he said.

Shepard paused. "Where'd you come up against them?"

"Fehl Prime," he answered. "You know that moment where you can't quite believe what you're looking at?"

"Oh, yeah," Shepard said, smiling slightly.

"Saw them standing there in front of us, clear as I'm looking at you." His mouth twisted. "Wasn't sure whether I should've laughed or just started shooting."

"Yeah." She almost wanted to ask how it had worked out, whether they'd been ordered in entirely ignorant, how he'd handled it afterwards. But she was still sitting in a fucking cell, and he'd speak if he wanted to, and she could see the shadows around his eyes. "Shooting works best. If you want my opinion."

His expression softened, and he retorted, "You would say that."

"It can work." She scrubbed a hand through her hair. "You know what I'm doing that I really shouldn't be?"

"Staying locked up?"

"That's funny." She grinned. "I'm counting the days, and then I get it wrong, and then when I do it again, I kind of wish I wasn't right."

"Has to end sometime, Shepard."

"Yeah, I know. I just miss," she said, and stopped herself. "Being outside. Well, being outside on my ship. If that makes any kind of sense."

Vega smiled. "Yeah, I get that. And look at it this way. You'll have time to lose as many hands of poker to me as you care to."

"Yeah. That's the highlight of my day."

"Course it is." He uncoiled to his feet. Almost absently, he shoved the cards into one of his half-open pockets. "Take care, Shepard."

"You too, Vega."

She watched as the door swung closed on his heels. She heard the familiar, heavy noise of the locks sliding into place. The silence rushed back, muffling and desperate. She forced her thoughts blank and reached for the grey shelf, the one that bracketed the window. Without properly looking, she grabbed at one of the books. Two short steps and she was flopped on the bed, her gaze fiercely – _deliberately, viciously focused – _on the pages and whatever it was their finely printed words held.

* * *

><p>Five days later Shepard woke with the sheets twisted around her. She wrestled them away and glared up at the grey, unhelpful sweep of the ceiling. Her breathing was coming sharp and fitful, and the febrile edges of her dream still plucked and pulled at her.<p>

_Lurching awake hard enough it hurt, her hands cramping against the sheets. Waiting, waiting terribly until the shapeless blur of the room resolved into lines and angles that she understood. Three more steadying breaths and her pulse was slowing finally. _

Stupid_, she thought, and glowered at the inoffensive white lights that glowed along the far side of the wall. Stupid to be waking coated in the clammy cling of her own sweat. Stupid to be waking so early at all, when she'd spent the past few days running herself towards exhaustion. _

Dreams that turned in on themselves, Shepard thought, and she wondered whether she had been dreaming of the beacon or the beacon's awful, grinding knowledge or something else.

Ten minutes in the shower sluiced away the sweat and the taut knot that had lodged itself at the back of her neck. She worked shampoo through her hair and swore when the strands slipped into her eyes. Through stinging eyes she reached for a towel and idly wondered if she could requisition scissors without inciting some kind of incident. Still half-cloaked in the swirl of the steam, she yanked her fatigues on and made herself fasten and button and tug every crease into place. Her bootlaces received the same fixed attention.

In the cell, she yanked the bedcovers straight, pausing long enough to flip the top corners back. She checked the clock, shrugged, and made her way to the window, as she was almost certain she'd done every morning.

Between the high spears of the city's towers, the sky was pewter, rippling with cloud. The curling green fringes of the trees buckled against each other. Shepard stood for long moments, her fingers flat on the sill and her gaze on the twining length of the river.

The creak and groan of the door startled her out of the suffocating press of her thoughts. She lifted her head, recognized Vega's familiar, slope-shouldered bulk, and smiled. "Morning, Vega. Bit early for a revenge rematch, don't you think?"

"You wouldn't win anyway," he replied, his lips pressed together and nearly bloodless.

Shepard straightened up. He was tense, she noticed, tense and coiled and far too uncertain. Narrowed eyes slightly puffy underneath and she wondered if he'd slept at all, or if he'd been hauled out of bed mid redeye watch. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure," Vega said. "I have to take you to see the defense committee."

"_Now?_" She reined in the urge to demand details and added, "Kind of early, don't you think?"

"I don't know, Shepard. All I know is that Anderson's here, and he wants to see you as well." His stance relaxed slightly, one eyebrow lifting. "Apparently he got in _really_ early."

She nodded. Out of habit, she checked the crisp lines of her fatigues, the way her belt buckle was settled. She needed to keep him talking before he hustled her out the door, and she wondered what else he'd seen on his way into the detention block. "What are your thoughts?"

"Chaos out there," he answered. "People running all over the place. Something's bitten them in the ass and it's showing."

"Alright," Shepard said, because there was nothing else she could say, nothing else that could bury the jangling, raw _wondering_ that was twisting its way through her. "Sounds important. Let's go."

* * *

><p>Joker glared into his mug until some of the steam cleared. As slowly, he looked up and at the glittering bank of consoles. "Okay," he said resignedly. "Run them again."<p>

He waited, his hand braced against the arch that curved up towards the CIC roof, lined with lights and gleaming. He was too aware of them, his _guards_ – _as if he was going to run off somewhere on his own, damn them_ – hovering somewhere behind his shoulder, watching him.

As they did every day they _let_ him come aboard his _own _ship, as if he was going to do something he shouldn't.

He ignored them and asked, "EDI? How's the cockpit?"

"Main console receiving," EDI answered, glass-edged and blank and as deliberately expressionless as she'd had to be since they'd found themselves with nowhere to go but the retrofit dock. "Back-up consoles firing up. Do you wish to run the program again?"

"No, that's fine."

He'd had them try it every day for the past week since they'd shifted around the floor clutter in the CIC. Hauling console banks from one side to another, and adding new ones in the slimmest of gaps and there had been that team of techs who'd polished up the star charts quite beautifully. And he didn't _need_ to be there for most of it, not really, but he'd had precious little else to do, and he'd found himself answering too many damn questions on base.

_And besides_, he thought, EDI needed someone to talk to sometimes as much as he did.

He lifted the mug, a sip turning into an accidental gulp and he swore after he scalded his tongue. He supposed he'd take himself on a meandering tour through the decks, see what they'd managed to shine up since he'd last stepped on board – _he avoided the loft deck, he always avoided the loft deck, and they'd said it was the same, and he'd tried not to hear it when they told him it was going to be handed over to Anderson sometime, when the time came, when it needed to be_ – and maybe finish up the morning down with Adams in engineering.

He straightened up, carefully, feeling the slow aching twinge as he settled his shoulders. He leaned against the arch and finished the coffee, faster that he'd've liked, but his guards had nothing else to do but regard him sidelong, and their undivided attention was making his skin prickle. He abandoned the mug somewhere beside the main constellation chart, and figured he'd probably make the most use out of himself down in the AI core.

"Mr Moreau," EDI said, and he could've sworn that her voice sounded _frayed_ somehow, which was _stupid_, because he wasn't certain she knew how to sound anything other than excruciatingly measured.

Joker paused. "What's up, EDI?"

"Please come up to the cockpit."

"We finished in there, didn't we?" He turned anyway, one hand automatically steadying himself against the wall. When she didn't elaborate, he shrugged and ambled back up the main walkway.

"Okay," he said, leaning onto the back of his chair. "What should I be looking at?"

"Please look at the main tracking screen."

Joker complied, gazing while his mind tried to make sense of shifting scarlet markers and the amount of them and how they were filling the whole damn screen. "EDI," he said uselessly.

"Opening communication channels for you, Mr Moreau."

"Yeah," he said, and pushed one hand against the back of his cap. He fumbled for the comm button and added, "HQ? This is the _Normandy. _We've got a lot of incoming traffic cutting into low atmosphere. Anything I need to know about?"

The low, empty hiss of silence answered him.

"EDI," he said, fumbling for something to say, anything to say. "You getting anything from Alliance Command?"

"Nothing."

"Okay." He gripped the back of the chair, his knuckles bleaching against the black lines of it. He didn't want to comb the cockpit screens back, because then he'd have to look and he'd have to _know_.

"Jeff," EDI said, softer.

"I know. I know." Somehow he wrestled himself around to the front of the chair. He ignored the scarlet blur of the tracking screens. Seconds crawled past, inching and too slow and he was aware of the tang of sweat on his lips. He keyed the cockpit screens back and stared.

The sky was grey, the clouds heavy and roiling. He could see the gleaming swathe of the river, and the high rising spires of Alliance Command, and the edge of the _Normandy_'s landing platform, pristine and clear. And between the towers he could see the arching, unfolding spines – _legs, claws, parts, whatever the hell they were_ – that he knew were part of a Reaper, the curving bulk of it swathed in cloud.

"Oh," Joker breathed, the word catching hard and aching in his throat. "Oh, _shit_."

He sank into the chair before his legs could give way on him. He reached for the main controls and swore when his hands shook wretchedly enough that he couldn't even key in the initial activation cycle.

Shadows jagged across the cockpit shields, and he flinched. There were _more_ of them, and he could half see them as he tried desperately to focus on the controls under his hands. _More_ of them, and he felt the shuddering thump through the whole damn ship as something heavy – _the long reaching claw of one of them, punching into the ground far too near_ – smacked hard against solid ground. His fingers slid too fast across the control screen and he lost painful, dragging instants reordering the drive core systems.

"They appear to match Commander Shepard's description of Sovereign," EDI said.

"Right, EDI. Thanks." Joker swiped sweat from his eyelashes. He'd forgotten _something_, he was sure of it, and when something bright and fierce and red sliced a cracking, tearing path through one of the HQ buildings, his thoughts scattered wildly.

Breaking the city apart, he realised, breaking it apart and cutting it open and there were _people_ down there, _in there_, and they'd be all over the fucking planet by now and _how_ had they done it so quickly?

"Moreau." One of the guards, he realised, one of _his_ guards, and stamping angrily up the walkway behind him. "Moreau. What are you doing?"

"I'm getting this ship in the air and I'm doing it _now_."

"You're not authorized." The guard's voice wavered.

"Right now," Joker snapped. "I don't give a shit. Now back up and let me do this."

The guard hesitated, and Joker heard the slide of gloved fingers against the back of his chair.

"_Look at that_," Joker said, close to frantic. "Look at it. Look at what's happening out there. We _can't_ stay for this."

Some part of his mind registered the sound of the guard retreating, booted feet skidding slightly. He had a half-empty ship with a barebones retrofit crew and somewhere ahead of the docking platform, he could see wreathing flames, swarming up and through the gaping holes where windows should have been.

_No_, he thought. _He had _his_ ship. _

Below, the engines stirred and rumbled.

"Airlock?" Joker asked.

"Sealed," EDI answered.

"Okay." He flattened his hands over the control screen, silently prayed that he hadn't rushed the warm-up, and keyed the thrusters. "Shields?"

"Holding," EDI said.

Shoulders rigid, Joker eased the ship into the air. Gently, slowly, coaxing her up off the docking platform and turning her in the same fluid motion. The tracking screens were spilling out numbers and distances and he knew he had seconds to get them moving, and moving properly.

Beneath the rapid, agile movement of his hands, the _Normandy_ tilted and dropped slightly, banking up and sideways until he had clear air on one side of the cockpit.

"Traynor," Joker grated into the internal comm unit. "Get up here."

The huge, gleaming bulk of a Reaper blurred past the cockpit as he twisted the ship away and _faster_ until she was arrowing up and between the sawtooth ruins of buildings. Smoke unreeled beneath in thick, blanketing coils. Something too big flared and shuddered cracked apart, the awful brightness of it - _it was a ship, another ship, a small sleek ship and he'd almost read the ID markers along its hull_ - lancing through the cockpit.

He heard running footsteps and Traynor's voice, unsteady and almost breathless. "Joker, what is it? We've all been," she said, and stopped. "Oh. Oh, _God_."

"I know," he said. He blinked, his eyes stinging with sweat or tears or both. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. But I need you to do something for me."

"_This _is what," she said, and gulped down a shaking breath. "This is what you were talking about?"

"Yeah, and I'd bet anything that _now_ they believe us," he snapped. "Traynor. You need to listen to me."

"There's so many," she said, and sounded numb.

"Traynor. Sit down. Co-pilot's chair," Joker ordered.

His hands moved again, and the ship's nosecone dropped. The red glare of a Reaper's main weapon flooded the cockpit. He was aware of Traynor's half-stifled shout, and the coppery taste inside his own mouth. He let the ship slew sidewards, and the searing glow of the beam tore the air above.

Traynor scrambled her way into the other chair, her hands latching over the edge of the console. "Oh, my God. Joker. Joker, look at it."

"I see it."

"Why didn't we," she said, and her voice vanished. "Why'd they get so close so fast? Why didn't we pick them up sooner?"

"We were running on minimal systems." He urged the ship over the drooping span of a bridge and higher, and higher again.

"Not just us," she said, hushed. "Everyone."

"I don't know how. Traynor. Listening?"

"Yes," she said, in the same tight, strained voice. "Listening."

"I need you to talk to the others. Explain what we know and what we don't know. I'll be up here, so I'll need you to talk to the others." The words ran frantic and rushed from his lips, and he didn't dare take his eyes from the console, didn't dare look at her to see if she'd heard him. "I'll relay updates through EDI. Okay? Traynor? Okay?"

"Okay."

"And I need you to start raking through comm traffic. Who's down there, who isn't. Anyone we can talk to. Anyone talking Alliance codes. Okay?"

"Okay," she whispered.

"Look for Councilor Anderson, anything about Admiral Hackett. Find out," he said, and the breath locked up in his chest. He canted the ship sideways, too fast, almost violently, and the surge of motion made him shudder. Somewhere above, the curving shape of a Reaper plummeted past, claws extending and slicing the air. "Find out who's in charge," Joker managed, each word bitten off and terse. "Find out what plan's going to be put in place. Find out where the hell we should be going, and who we should be answering to."

Traynor gasped out something that sounded halfway between a laugh and a sob. "And that's just for today, is it?"

"Sorry. It's just a start."

"I understand."

Under his hands, the _Normandy_ spun, slowly and gracefully, until she was angled back at the ragged spires of the city. Twisting curls of smoke and between them, he could see the shining, darting movement of other ships. And above them and below them, the ponderous, relentless shapes of the Reapers as they sank towards the ground.

Heavy and huge and he tried counting them and surrendered after he'd noted a dozen of them. All of them floating down in unnerving symmetry, settling easily and hooking the blunt tips of their claws into the ground and into the roil of the river as if it was easy.

"Joker," Traynor said urgently. "Joker?"

"Sorry," he said raggedly. "You say something?"

"Yes." She spread her fingers wider on the console. "Why are we sitting here?"

"We're not," he answered, and the ship tipped, gliding down and sideways and flitting beneath another crackling red beam.

"Joker, we need to get out of here."

"Not yet."

"Not _yet?_" She shifted in the seat, twisting as if she wanted to shove upright and push herself away from the console, away from the terrible, wrenching _truth_ that filled the cockpit screens.

"Traynor, get on the comms for me. That's what we need to do right now."

"Right now we need to get _out_ of here."

Her voice was splintering, and painfully he understood. "Get on the comms with EDI and find me something."

"Joker," she said, as if her tongue was as leaden and useless as his felt.

"Shepard's down there somewhere," Joker said. "We're not leaving."


	34. Inferno

_A very big thank you to everyone who's following this story - your support and encouragement means so much. Bioware of course owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty-Four – Inferno**_

Shepard's shoulders hit the wall hard enough that the breath rattled from her lungs. She slid sweat-sticky palms along the rifle and waited, muscles locked and her pulse hammering.

The air was hot, rippling with the heat, the heat that was spilling and spilling from toppled towers and ripped-open buildings and the plunging, shuddering _things_ that kept thundering down from the sky. Some searing, unnerved part of her was aware of the slow, ponderous sound of what she _knew_ was a Reaper, its huge claws digging in and lifting and swaying as it moved, somewhere far too fucking close.

She had blood slicking one side of her face, God knew how many bruises, and the grinding knowledge that she was shooting half-blind and without armour.

_Breathe_, she thought desperately. _Breathe and take it slowly_ and she _had_ to cling onto the awful awareness the only thing about to soak up stray fire would be skin and cloth and bone.

"No, a gunship, shot down," Anderson grated from somewhere behind her. "The harbour. We'll send up a flare."

She heard the surging crackle of static, and Anderson swearing, and the thud and crack as he squeezed the trigger on the flare gun.

"ETA?" Shepard asked.

"They've got the _Normandy_ bearing down on them," Anderson answered breathlessly. "Minutes."

Shepard nodded, and shoved back the terrible urge to snap that minutes were a long damn time, trapped half in the open and half backed up against the water and nothing to stop a Reaper from swinging its weapon sights at them except bare luck.

_Minutes, when the comm traffic screens in Alliance HQ had blanked out and the emergency channel had stuttered back online and by then the Reapers would've been everywhere. _

_ Minutes, while she'd registered the sheer fucking _size_ of the shadow that eclipsed the windows, while the blistering scarlet beam weapon had sliced through the glass and through the room and she'd ended up on her back, supine and gasping. _

_ Minutes, while she'd followed Vega and almost walked smack into Alenko and fought with the sudden urge to demand why the hell he was here, _today_, while she'd even stumbled over what to call him, and latched onto rank because it was safe and flat. _

_ Minutes, while she'd picked her way through rubble – broken bits of stone and those curling metal spars that had still hissed with the heat and that sickening jump over flames – half following Anderson because she wanted to and half because she knew there was no other way. _

Beneath her feet, the ground trembled. She looked away from the fractured walkway and across to the river, and up and up again at the Reaper as it moved, sinking downwards. Wrapping its claws around the slim rise of a tower, digging in until stone and metal gave way, buckling beneath it and falling.

The Reaper was vast and red and she wanted to scream out her rage at it. She wanted to see it come splitting apart and crumpling and _stopping. _

Her omni-tool flared, tiny targets darting and shifting. Shepard gritted her teeth and settled the rifle against her shoulder again. She uncoiled, aiming and firing in almost the same motion.

Two of them – _whatever the fuck they were, lumbering and stocky and all of them with weapons strapped to their arms, part of their arms, she could barely see the difference – _and they collapsed, tumbling onto the ground. She glared through the haze of the smoke and sighted on another, stampeding forward. Its arm swung up, the barrel of its weapon flaring blue. She twisted sideways and fired, the bullets spraying across its head and chest. It flailed, its weapon dipping, and Shepard shot again, and again until it fell.

Another shot whipped past her, too close, close enough that she felt the bite of it against the side of her arm. She crouched low, her lips stinging with sweat.

"How many?" Anderson asked.

She turned slightly, rocking back on her heels so that she could see him, hunched over as low as she was. "I'm reading twelve. Coming in from behind the walkway. They drop off there and they get to rush us however they feel best."

Anderson grinned, tired and with little humour. "Lovely."

"I guess I don't have to tell you to time your shots, keep an eye on your ammo counter, and remember like hell to stay in cover?"

Anderson tightened his grip on his gun. "The occasional reminder can't hurt."

Shepard bit back a startled smile and unfolded upright. Her first volley scythed the feet out from under one of them, sent it staggering. The second forced two of them back, clawing at each other and the long, weeping wounds she'd opened in their throats. She flattened herself back against the uneven press of the wall and waited tersely while Anderson sighted and fired.

"Okay," Anderson said, and curled himself lower again.

Shepard shifted, halfway to upright, and fired again, relentless and patient. Two more of the creatures crumpled, and those behind cannoned into them, snarling and clambering and pushing their way past. She paused, her shoulders rigid and waiting, _waiting_ until they cleared the walkway.

Weapons lifting and fixing and every crawling nerve beneath her skin screamed at her to get behind cover _right now_. She squeezed the trigger and dropped to her knees a heartbeat later. Bullets grazed the broken edge of the wall above her head.

"They down?" she asked.

"They're down," Anderson answered, almost wryly. He straightened and fired, two sharply-angled shots. "And not moving."

"Thanks."

"You know," he said. "It's really not a competition."

Shepard swallowed a laugh. "Right. Sorry." Another deep, gulped-in breath steadied her slightly. "Okay?"

"Okay," Anderson answered, as firmly.

She nodded, and then she was moving again, her elbows bumping the wall as she straightened. One rapid glance showed her _more_ of the damn creatures, clambering ungainly and far too fast out of the wreckage that cluttered the walkway. Another, and she saw the diving shadow of something huge as it dwarfed the river.

"We've got company," Shepard said. She fired, a quick burst that scattered the three creatures nearest. A follow-up volley knocked them flat, their hands slamming lifelessly against the ground. "_Big_ company."

"I see it," Anderson answered raggedly.

They were cornered, and Shepard could feel it every time the ground tremored beneath her boots. Cornered, and all she could do was keep firing, shoving herself up to her knees and sighting on them as they surged forward.

"Running empty," Anderson snapped.

"Yeah," Shepard said, partly an acknowledgement, partly something to say, _anything_ to say. "Keep going."

The air dragged across her tongue, hot and stifling and coppery. She fired again, as fast as she dared, fiercely noting every time one of them – _one of the creatures, the Reapers' creatures, their arms heavy with flaring blue weapons_ – collapsed and gave way.

Grey shadow swooped across the walkway and over the wall and Shepard flung herself down to her knees. She was halfway back up, her thoughts scattering wildly, when she saw that it was a ship – _her ship, _some startled, relieved part of her mind supplied, _her ship_ – gleaming and sleek above them as it curved over the walkway.

"About time," Shepard managed, the words dry and rasping.

The _Normandy_'s main guns flashed, deafening and painfully bright, cutting through rubble and the creatures that milled in front of it. Shepard twisted away, her mouth all full of the stink of burned flesh and melting metal. She slung the rifle over one shoulder, the strap catching awkwardly.

"Come on," she said, and grasped Anderson's arm. "We really don't need to earn any more attention."

"Yeah," Anderson answered. He ushered her through the gap in the wall, half a step behind. "Let's get you on board."

"What?" She stopped, and he slammed into her shoulder. She turned, slowly, only vaguely aware that her throat was thick with dust and exhaustion and something else. "_What_ did you just say?"

"You heard me, Shepard. Come on."

She stumbled across the ruin of the walkway. Above, the _Normandy_'s landing lights sliced bright swathes across the jagged spars of the wreckage. She heard the sliding whirr and knew that meant the landing ramp was lowering, hovering mid-air, the whole ship hovering and waiting.

"Anderson," she said. "You can't. We need to do this. We need to get this sorted."

"This?" he said, raising one hand. "Come on, Shepard. You know as well as I do that this place is full of people with nowhere to go right now. They'll need someone to get them together. Someone to tell them it might be alright."

Slowly, she nodded. "I know. And I'll get them and you out of here. You know that?"

Anderson smiled, the corners of his mouth creasing. "Go to the Council. Make them hear you."

"Yeah, because I've been so good at that so far," she retorted.

"Then get better at it," he responded mildly.

"Guess this time I've got plenty of actual evidence." She paused, uncertain suddenly, almost wanting to haul him up the ramp and onto the ship and _away_. "You'll be alright?"

"I'll be alright," Anderson said. "Oh, and Commander? Consider yourself reinstated."

She choked on a laugh. "Thanks. So much."

"Take care, Shepard."

She wanted to tell him to get himself to safety, higher ground, lower ground, whatever tiny cramped part of the city that maybe the Reapers or their swarming ground forces might overlook. She wanted to tell him to get himself some damn good armour, right now, and that he'd best hope that maybe they'd slow their assault come sundown.

She swallowed, and said, "You too, Anderson. Stay in touch."

Shepard turned away, the rifle digging into her back. She gauged the distance to the landing ramp and then she was moving, pushing herself into a loping run until she was almost there. Another surging motion and her boots skidded onto the ramp, clumsy and badly-timed.

Someone caught her arm, and she found herself looking into Vega's face, ashen and sweat-streaked.

"Hey," Shepard said thickly.

"Yeah," Vega said. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."

"You're a mess."

He must've meant the way her fatigues were clinging to her, scuffed and torn and patched with blood and God knew what else. "I'm fine. We need to get in the air."

Vega frowned. "You mean we're leaving?"

"Yeah," Shepard said, and knew she should be saying something else, explaining, filling the raw silence. "We are."

"And," he said, his hands clenching around his belt. He was hurting, and she could see it in his face and the terse, coiled way he was standing. "What about Councilor Anderson?"

"He's staying."

"He's _what?_"

"Look," Shepard said. She crossed the last few feet into the loading bay proper. She could feel the impatient thrum of the ship. "We're going to the Citadel. He's staying. You really want to fight about it, then we can, later. Right now, we need to get out of here."

"Yeah, I," Vega snapped. "Yeah. Okay."

"Okay. You had Alenko with you?"

"Yeah. I did." He scraped a hand through his hair. "Yeah. He's, ah. CIC. He's okay."

"Okay. That's good." She fumbled her way to the console, part of her mind registering that the loading bay was different, emptier, more open, and she wondered how much of her ship still _was_ her ship. She glared at the console until she found the comm button, hit it, and growled, "Shepard here. Let's get out of here."

"Right you are, Commander," Joker answered, and Shepard found herself laughing suddenly, painfully, her hands clamped against the console.

"Joker," she said. "Really?"

"Still here," he informed her drily.

"I'll be up soon."

"No problem. I'll just be here. You know, avoiding Reapers."

"Funny." She let her fingers slip away from the comm and for a long moment, she simply stood there, breathing in clean air and feeling the steady rumble as the engines heaved into life.

Ten minutes later, she worked her way up and into the elevator and into the strained quiet of the CIC. Half-deserted, and let herself stare at the constellation charts and the familiar glimmer of the console banks and the limpid spots of light. She was aware of others – Alliance personnel, dark fatigues and nervously taut beneath them, and she understood – and she knew that she'd have to introduce herself properly, take herself around the ship until she'd at least heard their names.

Halfway to the archway she found Alenko. "Hey," Shepard said. "Kaidan. You okay?"

"Yeah," he answered, his voice flat. "Hell of a day."

"Yeah. It was."

"Everything just," he said, and shrugged. "Fell apart."

"We're heading out of here," she said, before he could ask. "You get yourself hurt?"

"Scrapes," he answered, his mouth shifting into a wry smile. "Not bad."

"Okay." She steadied herself against the solid span of the archway. "I need to check in with Joker."

He nodded, briskly, turning away in the same movement. "Of course."

_Strange,_ she thought. Tiny fragments of words that didn't – _couldn't_ – make sense of what she'd seen, of what they'd all seen, of how the city had come tumbling down around them, wrapped in flame. Words that were spoken because you knew you had to say _something_, anything, anything to stem the insistent, guilty flood of the silence.

She stepped into the cockpit, and almost automatically, she looked at the wide, darkness-blurred screens and the blinking ranks of the consoles first.

"Hey, Commander," Joker said, very gently.

She nodded and sank into the empty seat across from him. "We're clear?"

"Outside atmosphere minutes ago." He pushed a steaming mug across to her. "Bitter as hell and just as hot."

Shepard smiled. "You're an angel."

"I wouldn't go that far."

She wrapped one hand around the mug's handle. She could still taste it, the ash and the dust and the broken stone. She leaned into the steam and said, "Okay. Who have we got?"

"Hey, you need anyone other than me and EDI to fly this sleek and shiny beauty of a ship?"

"Good point."

"We've got Adams back in engineering," Joker said. "You should've seen his face when he saw the drive core. Don't think I've ever seen him that happy."

Shepard smiled. "Glad someone's enjoying themselves."

"And I've got two kids called Campbell and Westmoreland guarding the war room."

Shepard snorted. "Any particular reason the war room might be under threat?"

"They needed something to do," Joker answered genially.

"Fair enough."

"And there's Specialist Traynor, the kid who keeps hovering by the charts in the CIC. She's damn smart, that one. Even EDI thinks so."

"The highest praise," Shepard responded. The words were easier now, she thought, sitting with her feet up against one of the consoles and her mouth full of the sharp scent of the coffee. "What don't we have?"

"Medbay's empty," Joker admitted and finally his head turned, his gaze flicking away from the screens and fixing on her. "I mean, lockers are stocked and whatever. We're half empty. Just the retrofit crew for the most part."

"We'll make it work." She lifted the mug again. "Couldn't believe it was you, you know."

"Like I'd let this ship out of my sight."

"I hear that." She looked over the rim of the mug at him. "You okay?"

"You mean about that bit where the Reapers actually did turn up like we always thought they would and then burned everything?"

"Yeah," she said, and her voice seemed to catch in her throat, thick and treacherously unsteady. "That bit."

"That bit wasn't fun," Joker said quietly. He turned in his chair, leaning forward slightly. "Least we got out of there."

"Yeah, we did that."

"Commander," Joker said, and his eyes darted away from her. "Look, I. Yeah."

"Just say it," Shepard murmured.

"You okay?"

She tried to summon up something uselessly silly and failed. She swallowed, her throat sandy and aching. The truth fled from her lips, far too fast and close to wavering. "I feel so fucking lost."

"Shit," Joker said, and one side of his mouth shifted. "You're meant to say _yeah, I'm great._"

"Right," she retorted mildly.

"You going to _be_ okay?"

"Soon as I can point a very big gun at the nearest Reaper and blow it into embarrassingly tiny pieces, then yeah. Absolutely."

Joker grinned, slowly, as if he hadn't meant to. "Sounds like a plan."

"Yeah. Anything else I need to know right away?"

"Our comm systems are still a mess. I've got Traynor and EDI going over them, pulling anything out of the air they can, but it's slow going."

"I get that." Shepard braced her hands on her knees. She'd have to stand up, she knew, push herself upright and _move_. "Just keep on it, and let me know if you find anything. Anyone. Anything that can give us more intel."

"Course. Hey, Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

He tipped his head to one side. "You've, ah. Got armour and weapons waiting for you."

She paused, her fingers digging into the folds of her fatigues. "Really?"

"Really," Joker said, in the same tone. "Part of Anderson's requisitions, weeks ago. Made sure that you'd have gear."

"Down in the armoury?"

"That's usually where the guns and the armour live, yeah."

"Very funny, helmsman." Somehow she wrestled herself upright. Her shirt clung and dragged when she rolled her shoulders. "Hey, Joker? Thanks for the pick-up. Both of you."

Joker nodded, something in him softening, in the way he was sitting at the console, in the way his hands were planted against the glowing keypad. "You're welcome."

* * *

><p>Her quarters were as open and as white as she remembered, and as painfully, relentlessly empty as they had been months and months ago, when Lawson and Taylor had ushered her onto the ship and into Cerberus. Shepard eyed the blank blue ripple of the aquarium, spent minutes in one of the wall lockers, pushing through the clean, crisp folds of hanging fatigues, before she finally turned and looked at the immaculate lines of the bed.<p>

She pressed her fingertips into her palms and spun away, crossing the floor until she'd checked the desk and the console and the comm unit, and the small, brightly-lit bathroom.

She walked back, her feet snapping hard and staccato, until she surrendered and sank onto the edge of the bed.

_Garrus_, she thought, unbidden, his name filling her thoughts.

_Not now_, she thought, and swallowed. Not now, now while they were still arcing desperately away from Earth – _from what used to be Earth_ – and while she had to get them to the Citadel first.

_They'd already come for Earth and they'd come for Palaven and _God almighty_ she had no way to tell him. _

She needed to get herself back down and in the CIC and finding out just _what_ small, straggling threads of knowledge EDI and Joker's comm specialist might've plucked out of the air, and she needed to do it _not_ stinking of rubble and ash and sweat.

She fumbled a handful of medi-gel packets from the smaller locker and made her way into the bathroom. Under the harsh spill of the lights, she wrestled her fatigues off, wincing when the fabric crackled away from her skin, blood-stiff and filthy. Shepard twisted, glared over her shoulder, and noted two leaking scrapes. A third ran in a half-circle beneath her other shoulder, deeply gouged and already hot at the edges.

Numbly, Shepard cleaned them, as fast as she dared, grimacing at the sting of soap and hot water and the cold bite of the medi-gel afterwards.

_The shuddering sensation of the ground tilting and vanishing and nothing but air beneath. The shocking, awkward impact, shoulder-first and clumsy. She blinked, her eyelashes heavy with dirt and ash. She fumbled halfway upright, her head ringing. _

"_Anderson?" She spun, trying to see through the smoke and failing. "Anderson?"_

_Two steps, three, four, and she was coughing through the raw heat that had locked up in her throat. Eyes narrowed and breathing shallowly – slow, deliberate breaths, too hot and tasting like metal – and trying to make sense of the wreckage. _

That_ had been the wall, she thought, torn apart and letting in sunlight and smoke, the buckled shape of the windowframes stark and jagged. She dragged herself past upended tables, two desks, and the sputtering remains of consoles. Bodies as well, lumped against the wall or trapped beneath debris and even through the blur of the smoke she was sure she could see them, blackened and scorched and unmoving. _

_They'd been _talking_ to her, _talking_ to her and _asking_ her too many questions and suddenly her pulse was hammering. _

"_Here," Anderson said, his voice low and choked. _

_Shepard turned. "Okay?" she asked, from behind cupped palms. _

"_Breathing," he said. "You?"_

"_I'll manage. Let's go." _

Shepard pulled clean fatigues on, the crisp drag of them tortuous over bruises and stopgap bandages. She'd splashed water through her hair and scrubbed off the worst of the dirt and hoped that the rest of the tension might seep itself out from her muscles.

She was midway through buckling her boots on when the comm station beeped.

"Commander?"

"What's going on, Joker?"

"Emergency communication from Admiral Hackett, Commander," he answered, and she thought she heard something like relief in his voice. "You want me to patch him through to your quarters?"

"No," Shepard said. "We'll take it in the briefing room. We're all going to need to hear this."

* * *

><p>Garrus nudged the door closed with his elbow and ambled the rest of the way to the desk. As idly, he sank into the chair and waited while the console whirred, loading the morning's comm traffic reports. He had a handful of operatives to check in with, and he supposed he'd while away a couple of hours waiting on them.<p>

Immediate planetside fleet traffic offered up nothing – _nothing past typical daily maneuvers, and one fighter group currently being castigated for being too slow off the mark on first watch rounds _ - and a quick scan of local intel networks offered up the same lack of movement.

"Vakarian, sir? You there?"

The comm unit hissed again, and Garrus frowned. The static was too thick, even with the distance, and he recognized his operative's voice. _Stationed way out,_ he remembered, _deep space recon, marking off comm buoys._

"Course I'm here," he responded. "What do you see?"

"Might be nothing."

"What do you see?" Garrus repeated, as carefully.

"Flag up our comm buoy markers," his operative said roughly.

"Doing it," Garrus replied.

"Vakarian, sir. Way I'm seeing it is," his operative said, the words rasping and unsteady. "I'm seeing our comm buoys going down. One by one and very fast."

"Okay. I'm getting the feed now."

The screen shifted and resolved and Garrus stared, his chest suddenly too tight. Somehow, he settled his hands against the desk and made himself count them, tiny blinking dots in ordered rows. "When did it start?"

"Minutes ago. Twelve. Twelve minutes, I think."

_Minutes_, he thought, uselessly. "Okay. I need you to," Garrus said, and the words dried up in his mouth.

The screen shifted again, and Garrus saw it – _saw it and knew what it meant, what it _had _to mean_ – as the markers snapped out, one and then another, and a third. Swallowed up by whatever it was that was swarming out of the darkness.

_Whatever it was_, he thought, and exhaled sharply. He shoved up to his feet and snarled, "Get out of there. You, the ship. Get out of there and get back planetside. Or to the fleet. Whichever. Just start moving and do it right now."

"Sir?"

"It's an order." Garrus paused long enough to key his omni-tool into life. "Keep me updated and get your data to everyone else on our taskforce."

"Yes, sir."

He almost made it to the door before his thoughts upended. _Fedorian_, he thought, Fedorian first and he'd have to wrangle some kind of command centre and hope like hell they could keep communication lines open.

_Earth_, he thought, before he could help it.

_Earth and Shepard and she wasn't _here_ and he'd always thought they'd hit Earth first, before anything else, before anywhere else. _

Garrus latched a hand over the doorframe, his shoulders taut and his teeth clamped together. He needed to _think_, properly and carefully, and he didn't need to lose himself in the awful mire of his thoughts. His fingers slid awkwardly across his omni-tool again, and he fumbled his way to the comm screen. Halfway to furious, he shouldered the door open and said, "Bartus? You reading me?"

"Vakarian? Yes, I hear you."

"Meet me at the Primarch's office," Garrus said.

"What, now?"

"Now. I'll be sending you some data. Get yourself there as quickly as possible. And come armed."

"You've organized a meeting?" He heard Bartus' sudden, sharp intake of breath, and then he echoed, "Armed?"

"Just get yourself there."

* * *

><p>Fifteen frantic minutes later, Garrus marched under the sweeping curve of the archway. He was too aware of the windows, and the blue dome of the sky beyond, blank and bright and untenanted. He curled his fingers against his palms, gauged the distance to the last set of doors, and nodded to the guards.<p>

Before they could speak, Garrus said, "Urgent information for the Primarch. I need to see him."

One of the guards eyed him, disinterested. "Primarch Fedorian's schedule doesn't indicate that he's to be meeting with anyone at this time."

"Like I said. Urgent."

The guard straightened away from the wall. Garrus wondered if they could both see it in him, the core-deep tension that had gotten hold of him, that had his hands stiff and the inside of his mouth dry.

"Details?" the guard demanded.

"Not to you," Garrus snapped, the words rushing out too fast and venomous. "I need to get in there. Right now. I need to get in there and you're going to let me."

"Clearance?"

"Current operational taskforce," he said coldly. He hauled up his omni-tool again, his fingers shaking against the glowing keypad. "Here. Primarch's authorization."

The guard hesitated, his gaze pinned on the screen.

"Come in with me," Garrus said desperately. "Walk me in at gunpoint if you damn well want to."

The guard's chin lifted, pale eyes scrutinizing him. "You've got ten minutes."

Garrus waited while they keyed the door open, his whole frame rigid beneath his armour. He was across the threshold a heartbeat later, some harried part of his mind wondering if he'd even _get_ ten minutes.

"Vakarian?" Poised behind the desk, the Primarch glanced up. He paused. "What is it?"

"It's happening," Garrus said, low and insistent. His omni-tool flashed, and he shifted so that the main screen unfolded in front of the Primarch. "Deep space comm buoy data, came in less than thirty minutes ago."

Fedorian's eyes flickered. "That fast?"

"Yes, sir."

The Primarch's hands tightened against the edge of his desk. For a long, wrenching instant, he stared at the screen, at the blinking echoes of what Garrus already knew.

"Sir," Garrus said, very quietly.

"Yes." Fedorian's head lifted, his gaze sharpening. "Tell me one thing, Vakarian. You're certain?"

"Yes, sir," he said, resolute. "I'm certain. It's started."

"Then you'll want incoming fleet intel," Fedorian said. Briskly, he added, "I'll need your operatives. Ongoing data streams from all of them. Keeping communications open and clear will be vital."

"Yes, sir." Garrus leaned heavily against the side of the desk and wondered if his legs were going to give way from relief or fear or both. He could feel the relentless beat of the sun through the high windows, and when he made himself look up, he saw nothing but blue emptiness and the faint haze of early cloud. "Sir, I'd suggest that we get you out of here and organize a command centre."

Fedorian's eyes narrowed slightly, and before he could protest, Garrus snarled, "We'll need you somewhere safe. Somewhere defensible, close to the ground. And we'll need to issue high alert protocols to everyone in this building and every legion we have. Right now."

The comm station on the Primarch's desk buzzed.

"Primarch Fedorian, sir?"

"Listening," Fedorian responded.

"Third Fleet recon here, sir. Getting some strange images coming in from our scout ships."

"Send them through," Fedorian said, his voice tightening. "And form back up with the rest of the fleet."

"Yes, sir. Sending."

Garrus waited, hands planted hard against the side of the desk. Seconds crawled by, dragging and impatient. Fedorian leaned into the comm and asked, "Soldier? You're there? Check your comms."

Silence answered. Garrus pushed his tongue against the back of his teeth and willed himself to wait an instant longer. _Could be anything_, he thought. Comm delays were the boring side of normal, and he _knew_ that.

_Like he knew that fleet scouts didn't usually get their reports bounced straight to the Primarch. _

"Sir," Garrus said. "He's not there. We need to move."

"Yes." Fedorian stepped away from the desk, his fingers already darting towards his omni-tool. He turned, his strides lengthening as he crossed the floor. "Vakarian, you'll work with your taskforce. I'll convene the Hierarchy."

Half a pace behind, Garrus asked, "And right now, sir?"

"Emergency alerts," Fedorian replied, both words clipped and sharp. The door whirred, and he was out into the corridor before it was halfway open. "Vakarian?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Don't leave. Send me anything new." Fedorian jerked his chin at both the door guards. "I'll have a command centre location inside fifteen minutes."

"Good," Garrus said uselessly, because he thought he should be saying something, something to quell the trepidation that had its teeth sunk under his skin.

He made it another eight steps before he ploughed into Bartus. "Sorry," Garrus muttered. "You went through the data?"

"Yeah," Bartus answered, close to breathless. "And I had to fight my way in here."

"You're staying with me," Garrus said.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." Bartus' gaze skipped to Garrus' shoulder, and the gleaming height of the windows and back again. "So this is, ah."

"Yeah," Garrus said. As carefully as he could, he added, "I need you to start contacting everyone. Start out with our guys positioned in the fleets, then Menae command. Okay?"

"Okay." Bartus nodded. His eyes were flickering, jumping, his hands pushing against each other. "Yeah. I can do that."

"Good. I'll be right here. Okay?"

"Okay."

Garrus turned, vaguely aware of too much motion, guards filling the corridor up ahead. Someone barking out orders, and the running noise of someone else's boots against the floor. His fingers shook against his omni-tool as he worked his way through his contacts.

He waited, one hand flattened against the clear press of the window, hearing nothing but the insidious hiss of silence.

The connection whined, and eventually, Solana said, "_Garrus?_"

"Yeah," he answered. "Are you okay?"

"No. No, we're not. We're," she said, her voice drowning under the crackle surge of the static. "Two ships," she said, her voice roughening. "Already gone down. They're _huge_, Garrus. Where are you?"

"I was just with the Primarch," he said. He swallowed against the thickness in his throat. "Where's your ship?"

"Fleet," she said, and something else, lost to the distance and the noise.

He slammed his hand against the glass, his teeth clicking together hard enough to hurt. "Sol," he said desperately. He wanted to ask numbers, details, what _did_ she see, what had they already seen.

_How far and how much time and she _needed_ to get out of there. _

"Sol, talk to me. I'm losing you."

"Turning into the fleet," she answered, each word bitten off. "Have to go. Where's Dad?"

"Don't know," he said. _Could've lied, should've lied, couldn't_, he thought. "I'll get to him. I will."

"Okay. Yeah," she said. She was breathing too fast, ragged gulps that ruined her voice. "Garrus, they're," she said, and he couldn't hear it, couldn't pick out the words beneath the sputter of static. "On fire," she said, almost whispering, the sound of it strained. "Have to go."

The connection clicked off. Garrus glared at the window and the back of his own hand and the treacherously bare sky. "Bartus?"

"Still here."

"Okay." His thoughts were winding around themselves – _the fleets and Solana and they had to _move_ and oh hell Shepard _– too much and too uneven and he had to slow himself down. "Got anything?"

"Yeah. Some."

"Okay." He turned, dredging the word up, hollow and aching. "Talk me through it."


	35. Darkness

_Firstly, an apology for the huge delay - life rather got in the way for a while. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Thirty-Five – Darkness**_

"Visual feed," Garrus snapped. Beneath his feet, he felt another deep, shuddering groan. _Stone tearing_, he thought desperately. _Stone tearing or something big hitting the ground_. "Now," he added. "You're losing us again."

The console screen flickered, livid at the edges. He waited, shoulders taut, while the image shook and eventually resolved.

"Getting it, sir?"

Garrus nodded uselessly, his gaze pinned on the screen. Somewhere overhead – above the building, above the cramped labyrinth they'd marshaled into a stopgap command centre – the sky was grey and rippling with cloud. Between the high spires, he could see movement, too much movement, ships as they plunged too fast and too knowingly, vast claws opening.

"Vakarian, sir?"

"Here," he said. "Seeing it."

He swallowed, his tongue scraping dry against the back of his teeth. He counted six of them, filling the screen, filling the space between the towers, their hulls curved and shining. Another plummeted, claws unfolding and tilting and he saw the blinding flare of its beam weapon.

"Okay," he said, turning, forcing locked muscles to shift and move. "Anything new?"

"South sector's full of them." Looking harried, his eyes narrowed beneath the swirl of his markings, one of the soldiers lifted his head. "Here, sir. Incoming info is holding."

"Bad?"

"Very." The soldier reached for the keyboard and tried twice before he had the screen split in half, numbers unreeling alongside the street-level footage.

Smoke and toppled stone and metal and Garrus _knew_ he had to shove it away, batten it down until he thought about it too much, until the wrenching truth of it surged up and choked him.

"See that, sir?" the soldier said, gesturing.

Shapes, moving through the twining smoke. Lumbering and awkward and their feet coming down hard against the ground, hands catching onto the shattered edges of what might've been walls, hours earlier.

"Yeah. I do. Husks," Garrus added. "We getting any resistance reports from this sector?"

"We were," the soldier answered. "Comms are shaky. Cutting out all over the city. By the time we patch back in, well."

"Yeah," Garrus said. "I know. Keep it up as long as you can."

"Yes, sir."

He turned again, halfway across the room in six strides. Fleet numbers next, and some frantic part of him had hoped for better, had hoped that maybe some of them might be wallowing with damaged comm systems.

"Got a message incoming." Sitting hunched in front of another spread of glowing screens, a soldier motioned him closer. "Vakarian, sir."

"Put them through."

The connection crackled. Garrus leaned closer, his hands flat against the edge of the desk. "Say again," he said. "I repeat, state your message again."

"Punching through the fleet." The words were half-gasped, uneven and hurried. "Too many of them."

"We see them," Garrus said steadily.

"The capital." He heard the dreadful sound of metal shearing against something solid, and someone else snarled, "They _know_. They know where they're going. Sending numbers."

"Copy that."

"Orders?"

Garrus hesitated, his gaze pinned on the screen. "How's your primary weapon systems?"

"Functioning."

"Then fire back. Form up with anyone you can find. Anyone who's still got main weapons working. Just one of those bastards falls out of the sky before it gets here, and you'll have done well."

"Yes, sir. Sir, we're not," and the rest of the words drowned, buckling under the sudden swell of static.

Garrus nodded to the soldier, remembered to add something about consistent updates and turned, his fingers digging into his palms. Three hours and all he had were numbers, and numbers that were dubious at best and appalling at worst. He had fucking _Reapers_ all over Palaven and his breath was locking up in his throat and he needed to do something.

"Primarch?" Garrus shouldered his way past buzzing console banks and between a group of operatives, all of them hollow-eyed. "Fedorian, sir?"

Head bent over the gleaming sprawl of a map, the Primarch nodded. "How's your taskforce?"

"Checking in, sir. Sending footage when they can."

"Good."

Garrus stared at the map for a long, anxious moment. "Sir, I'd like clearance to leave."

"You'd _what?_"

"The city's falling apart on top of us," Garrus said. "I'll take my operatives and six soldiers. There's people out there, sir. Too many people."

"No," Fedorian said. He straightened, his gaze hard and unyielding. "Not now, Vakarian. I need you doing what you're doing right now. Coordinating."

"I'm not _coordinating_, sir," Garrus spat, before he could help it. "I'm taking information feeds that are telling me not much else except what we're losing. An hour ago I ordered a ground squad into action and I can't raise any of them, sir."

Fedorian's shoulders sagged. "I know. We're getting the same. Your request is denied, Vakarian. I need you here."

"Can I ask why, sir?"

"You're more use this way," Fedorian said bluntly. "I don't need you out there with a gun right now. I need you in here with me, combing through everything as we get it."

"Alright," Garrus said heavily. "I get it."

Fedorian nodded again, as brisk, and switched his attention back to the map and the bright clusters of points that Garrus knew were personnel bases beneath ground level, ammo caches, sublevel tunnels, all the empty apparatus of combat that he figured wouldn't do them a whole lot of good if the Reapers burned the city clean first.

Stiffly, Garrus spun away. He crossed the room again, ducking into the corridor beyond. He tipped his head to the guards and waited until he'd paced away from them. He fumbled with his omni-tool keypad and muttered, "Dad? You hearing me? You there?"

"Garrus?" His father's voice crackled, and he wasn't sure if it was the distance or apprehension or something else. "_Garrus?_"

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm here. I'm sorry, I've been…"

"I know. It's fine."

"It's not fine," he retorted. He glared at the inoffensive grey wall. "Where are you?"

"Where's your sister?"

Garrus gritted his teeth. "Still with the fleets. We spoke two – two and a half hours ago. Connection's dropping in and out. It's almost as bad down here."

"Yes. Yes, of course." His father dragged in a ragged breath. "You're safe?"

"Yeah," he said. "Dad, you need to get out of the city."

"I will."

"I mean it," Garrus snarled. "You need to move."

Silence responded and he waited it out, hating it and the gnawing uncertainty.

"I will," his father said again, eventually.

"Where are you? You've got weapons?"

"Garrus."

"Send me your location. I'll have a squad move out and find you," Garrus said. He whirled again, too aware of the painful thump of blood inside his own head.

"Listen to me," his father said, softly. "You send them out, they'll be torn apart."

"Look, I…"

"You're not listening."

"I _am_ listening," Garrus grated out.

"Then you know you need to stay where you are."

"Yeah," he conceded. "Yeah. I know. The Primarch's fine."

"Good."

"Tell me what you're going to do," Garrus said, the words leaden as they rolled off his tongue.

"I have people down here I can organize."

Garrus swallowed. He wanted to say something – _wanted his father to say something_ – something that would ease the thickness in his throat. "You're retired, remember?"

"I remember. Stay out of trouble."

"Not likely," Garrus replied. "Look, Dad. About Sol, I'll get through to the fleet and…"

The jarring sound of the connection blinking out startled him, even though he knew damn well he should've expected it. His fingers hovered over the keypad for a wavering, unsure moment.

He wanted to be outside. He wanted his rifle snapped into place in his hands. He wanted the useless weight of it slung off his shoulders and pointed at whatever might come crawling out of the rubble first.

He exhaled sharply and turned. Seconds later he was stepping over the threshold and back into the stifling clamour of the operation centre. "Who's talking to Menae command?"

"Here, sir." Sitting curled over two screens, both of them blurred at the edges, a soldier motioned him closer. "This is comm chatter, as of about three minutes ago."

"Connection's good?"

"Connection's holding, sir," the soldier said.

"General Corinthus still at headquarters?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay." Garrus planted his hands flat on the desk. "Put me through."

* * *

><p>The red haze of Mars filled the cockpit screens. Joker eased himself back into his chair and grimaced. He reached for his mug and swore when his fingers bumped clumsily against the handle.<p>

"You're tired, Jeff," EDI said gently, her blue sphere glowing above one of the consoles.

He rolled his eyes and retorted genially, "You noticed?"

He glanced at the other console, checked the planetary weather data – that damn storm, rolling in fast and heavy, and he wondered how long their comms would hold out – and instants later he was back and glaring at the tracking screens.

"There is nothing moving out there," EDI said.

"I know. It just makes me feel better if I can see that there's nothing moving." He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. He'd guided the _Normandy_ down through skeins of whirling coppery dust twenty minutes ago, and Shepard's initial report – _Cerberus, fucking Cerberus on Mars_ – had done nothing to dislodge the taut knot between his shoulders.

Footsteps cracked against the walkway behind him, and Traynor asked, "Joker, are you busy?"

"Not particularly."

She stepped around him, perching herself on the edge of the co-pilot's seat. "I've, ah. I've gotten some new info in. Numbers."

He stiffened. "What kind of numbers?"

"I've had them confirmed from Admiral Hackett's personnel," she said, and ducked her head slightly. "I'm sorry."

"Just tell me," he said.

"It's Arcturus Station," she said quietly. "It's gone."

Slowly, Joker nodded. He pressed his hands against the console. "Okay," he said, because he couldn't think of anything else to say, anything else he was supposed to say to something like that.

"Official numbers state that," Traynor said, and hesitated.

"I _know_," Joker snapped. "I know how many people were there."

"I'm sorry, I didn't…"

"It's okay," he said heavily. His eyes prickled, so he closed them, pushing the knowledge of it back and away. "It's okay. I'm sorry."

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Do you need anything else?"

"No." He mustered up a smile. "Thanks, Traynor. Anything else you get, come and let us know. Traynor?"

She paused, halfway out of the chair. "Yes?"

"Go get some rest."

He waited until she'd vanished, marching her way back down towards the CIC, before he tilted his head towards EDI. "Don't say it."

"Don't say what?" EDI asked.

"Yeah, you're so innocent." He leaned on his elbows, his gaze flitting across the screens again. "God, I want to be moving."

"Soon, Jeff," EDI told him.

"Yeah, and like the Council's going to listen when we get there." He scowled. "Sorry. I feel like all I'm doing is telling you what we already know."

"I am willing to listen," EDI said, and he could've sworn her voice softened a fraction.

"Thanks," Joker said wryly. He yanked his cap off, ran his fingers through sweat-damp hair, and tugged it back on. "Earth," he said, eventually, into the patient silence. "I want to know that we'll go back there. I want to know that we'll go back and do _something_." He laughed, painful and gritty and catching in his throat. "And I don't even know what that something might be. Guess that's the whole of my plan right now."

"I'm almost certain some plans could be worse," EDI said.

"You're making fun of me."

"A little," she conceded. "Maybe."

Joker smiled crookedly. "Good to know."

The comm unit spluttered, and he heard Shepard say, "…still there?"

"Still breathing," Joker answered automatically. "Getting fuzzy though. How's it look on the ground?"

"Not pretty," Shepard replied. "I reckon we'll cut out soon."

"Yeah, well. Throw up a flare, do a crazy dance, toss a rock up so that I can see it. You know, the usual ways to organize a pick-up."

Shepard laughed. "We'll figure it out."

"What do you see down there now?"

"Lots of Cerberus, a lot of dead scientists and guess who just dropped in on us?"

"I can honestly say I have no idea."

"We just found Liara," Shepard said.

Joker grinned. "A _nice_ surprise? Today? Who knew. Is she okay?"

"She's okay," Shepard answered. "Stay safe."

"We'll try. _Normandy_ out."

* * *

><p>Shepard loosened her grip on her rifle. "You know," she said wryly. "A heads-up is never a bad thing."<p>

Still breathing hard, Liara twisted her hands together. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that…"

"It's fine," Shepard said. She caught Liara's hand and squeezed. "Good to see you."

"And you." Liara's head lifted, her eyes flickering as she searched Shepard's face. "I want to say that I'm sorry about Earth, but it seems like anything I could say would be useless."

"Hey." Shepard shook her head. "Not at all. Hackett updated you?"

"Yes, briefly."

"Alright." Shepard swiped sweat out of the corners of her eyes. She was tired, she realised, bone-deep and aching beneath her armour. She had Cerberus slithering around the base and a rolling red wall of dust somewhere outside. She needed them moving and moving fast, before the storm blinded them, before some Reaper chanced an opportunistic launch towards the planet. "Tell me about the archives. All I got from Hackett was something about Prothean data here that we can use."

"I'm hoping he's right," Liara answered. She paused, fingers flitting as she keyed open the door. "We've uncovered – well, blueprints."

"For what?"

"A weapon," Liara said. "At least, it seems so. The data I've found so far still needs thorough analysis. We'll need to get to the central archives. And we'll have to assume Cerberus are on their way there."

"That's okay," Shepard said, and gave her a lopsided grin. "If they get there first, we can just ask nicely."

Liara smiled, slow and tentative. "I remember your definition of asking nicely, Shepard."

"Yeah. It hasn't exactly changed." She hefted her rifle and said, "Okay. Vega, I want you headed back to the shuttle."

"Why?"

"The storm," she said pointedly. "We might need a quick pick-up and I'd rather not have the _Normandy_ flying in circles trying to find us."

He frowned, and she wondered if he would argue. He'd been simmering since Earth – _since the Reapers, since he'd hauled her up into the ship _ - and she wondered what he'd seen.

_What she'd seen_, she thought. _What they'd all seen. _The city crumbling and wreathed in flames. The heavy, ponderous motions of a Reaper as it sunk its claws into the river, froth whirling against the glossy curve of its hull. Stone and shrapnel filling the air and the _heat_, rolling in punishing waves.

Vega opened his mouth, shrugged, and said, "Don't have too much fun without me."

"We'll try not to." Shepard waited until he had marched back and onto the elevator ramp. "Okay. Let's move."

The corridor proved empty, and Shepard quickened her pace, Liara and Alenko flanking her.

"This data," Shepard said. She turned her shoulders into the wall and paused, eying the next corner. "How'd you find it?"

"Process of elimination," Liara answered, almost drily. "Mixed with a little desperation. It's plans, Shepard. Not an answer."

"Might be the beginnings of an answer."

"How'd Cerberus get themselves involved?" Alenko asked.

"The usual way, I imagine," Shepard answered. "Infiltration. Insiders. Bribes. Pick one."

"And there's nothing you can," he said, and paused. She heard his slow intake of breath before he added, "Sorry."

"No, there's nothing I can add to that," she snapped, too fast and too vicious.

Part of her understood. Part of her understood that he had to be as wrung-through as she was, that she'd ordered him groundside and onto this gritty dustbowl of a planet on Hackett's harried insistence.

That he'd once seen her step off a ship decked out in the wrong colours.

"You really want to talk this out," Shepard said heavily. "Then we can do that later. Right now we need to get moving."

* * *

><p>Shepard glared at the pluming smoke and the scorched remnants of the Cerberus shuttle and silently considered that five minutes was an unfairly short time for an operation to go to hell.<p>

They had worked their way through the base, methodical and measured, combing through small groups of Cerberus soldiers. Assault troops armoured in dull white, and when Alenko had pried the visor off a fallen man's helmet, Shepard had seen the awful, sputtering wreck of his face beneath.

_Reaper tech_, she'd reckoned, swallowing back revulsion. Reaper tech and the poor bastard's eyes had been livid, the skin beneath blackened.

They'd found the archive room, and somewhere between the Illusive Man's crackling vidcomm message and Alenko shouting a warning about movement – _close by, too close, a woman, and siphoning the data _now_ – _Shepard had launched herself after her.

_Which somehow had wound its way to this, with the back of her legs cramping and sweat biting into the cracked corners of her mouth and the gnawing realization that the data was buried somewhere in the crumpled shuttle. _

"You know," Shepard said, pitching her voice mild. "I really thought that was going to involve shooting them down, not flying into them."

Vega swung his legs over the side of the shuttle and dropped onto the walkway. "It worked."

Shepard snorted. "I guess it did."

"Okay," Alenko said. "You want me to dig around for the data?"

"Yeah." Shepard let her shoulders sag slightly. "Shout if you find anything."

Six steps took him towards the shuttle, past Vega, and into the roiling smoke. She heard the sudden intake of his breathing, and the jarred, frantic scrape of his boots against the walkway, and a heartbeat later, she was turning.

"Shepard," Liara called, her hands flaring blue.

"I see it." As quickly, Shepard sank her rifle against her shoulder and sighted.

_The woman and she hadn't been a woman at all, not really, and she was _standing, _blackened and crackling and each movement too elegant. _Standing amid the wreathing smoke and her hands curling around Alenko's neck and _lifting_ him, armour and weapons and thrashing feet and all.

Shepard threw herself sideways and aimed over his shoulder. The bullets hissed against the panels of the shuttle, and the woman's head tilted. Another surging motion swung the woman around, and the impetus drove Alenko hard against the shuttle. His hands lifted, clawing at the woman's arms. She tensed and dipped, and the second whipcord-fast motion had him slammed against it again.

"Liara," Shepard grated. She fired again, the edge of the volley catching against the woman's shoulder and spinning her.

A shuddering rush of biotic energy tangled across the woman, pinioning her. Shepard squeezed her trigger, and the next round rocked the woman's head back. She was aware of Vega moving beside her, his shoulders tight as he fired, slicing the woman's ankles out from beneath her.

"She's down," Shepard said sharply. "Vega, can you manage him?"

"Yeah."

He was closing the distance back to the shuttles already, slinging his rifle up and into its harness. He crouched and carefully cupped a hand over Alenko's arm. Wordlessly, she followed him, sinking down beside him. She flattened her hands against the back of Alenko's neck, holding him in place while Vega shifted upright. As carefully, she leaned him back against Vega's shoulder.

"Okay?"

"Okay," Vega answered.

Shepard nodded. Grimly, she reached down and grasped the woman's shoulders. A heaving wrench had her flipped around, her body heavy and scraping against the ground.

"We're bringing her," Shepard said. "It. Whatever it is."

She wrestled it into the shuttle, stumbling the last two steps before she pitched it up against the bulkhead. Briskly, she checked the scorched, half-sunken angles of its face, unresponsive and cold. Cautious minutes later, she sat poised beside Alenko, half-aware of the rumble of the engines, stuttering into life.

"He's breathing," Liara said, gently. "Shallow but steady."

"Good," she said, the response automatic and hollow.

_He hadn't moved_, she thought. He hadn't moved and the woman's punishing grip had bitten through the collar of his fucking _armour_.

"Clear," Vega said.

The shuttle lifted, curving up too sharply. Shepard braced one arm against Alenko's shoulder and fumbled for her comm. "Joker? Joker, you hearing me?"

"I got you," Joker answered, his voice tight. "I also got a whole new lot of signals dropping in."

"And I'm guessing it's way too much to hope for that they're friendly."

"You'd be right. I'm reading you seconds away."

"Sounds good." The shuttle lurched higher, and Shepard gritted her teeth. "Get us moving fast as soon as the loading bay's closed."

"Understood. _Normandy_ out."

She pressed the back of her head against the wall and waited, feeling the swaying motions of the shuttle as Vega coaxed it up and through the whirling red storm. Another surging heave, and the shuttle jolted over the edge of the ramp and into the silence of the cargo bay.

"We're in," Shepard said.

"Okay," Joker replied. "Closing landing bay."

She was upright before Vega cooled the engines, sliding her hands under Alenko's arms. He stayed motionless, his weight hard against her shoulder when she lifted him.

"I'll get to the medbay," Liara said.

"Thanks." Shepard shifted her stance slightly, too aware of the grinding strain in her muscles.

"Here, Commander." Vega swung out of the pilot's chair and steadied her, one arm propping Alenko up. "Okay?"

"Okay. Slowly and carefully."

She could've guessed how many steps – short and cautious or otherwise – would take them up to the crew deck. She found herself counting them anyway, her gaze on the floor and her mind stubbornly blank. She discovered the medbay lit, and Liara standing poised beside one of the bunks, her expression taut.

"We don't have much," Liara said tersely.

"I know." Very slowly, she angled Alenko onto the bunk and stepped back. "We're headed to the Citadel. We can get him patched up there."

Liara nodded. "I'll do what I can. That won't be much, Shepard."

"I know," Shepard repeated. "I get it. Just keep him breathing until we get there."

"Of course." Liara leaned over him, her fingers dropping to the catches on his helmet. "I'll let you know if there's any change."

"Thanks." She rubbed aching knuckles across her eyes. "Vega, go get some rest."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. You can help solder the shuttle back into shape later," she said, and mustered up a tired smile.

"Great," he muttered. "Looking forward to it."

"Shepard," Liara said.

"The data, I know. I'm hoping some of it's still simmering around in the late Doctor Eva's circuits, or whatever the hell else she had going on inside." She pressed one hand against the doorframe. "I'll talk to EDI."

"Not just that," Liara said, one corner of her mouth curling. "Don't forget to sleep."

"Later," Shepard said.

She turned, and crossed into the jarring quiet of the crew deck. The CIC proved as tautly silent, and she discovered Joker sitting with his shoulders stiff and his hands splayed over his main keypad.

"We clear?"

"We're clear," he said, his gaze hard and intent on the bright glare of the cockpit screens. "Hitting the relay soon."

"Good." Shepard caught the back of the co-pilot's chair, spun it, and sat heavily. "You rested yet?"

"Yeah. I was napping while you were running around and enjoying the scenic sights of Mars."

"Bullshit."

Joker shrugged. "I want us out of the system. How'd it go?"

"Not the way you want it to go when you have a half-empty medbay." She thought she could still taste it, the gritty red dust and the scouring dry air. _The tang of her own sweat in her mouth when she'd hauled herself onto the rooftop walkway and pushed on faster_. _The heave of her own breathing and the jolting realisation that she was too tired, too wrung through, and the woman was too damn far ahead, the distance between them still widening. _

"So," Shepard said, and heard the roughening in her own voice. "We miss anything?"

"EDI's stabilized a connection through to Hackett." Joker turned slightly, his face pale and pinched. "He's got the Fifth Fleet dodging Reapers and he'll keep us updated."

She reached for the edge of the console and shoved herself upright, her grip tightening when she swayed. "Anything else?"

Joker hesitated, his gaze darting away from her and back again, almost frenetic. "No," he said finally. "I'm sorry, Shepard. We're not getting anything out of Palaven."

"It's okay," she said, the words mechanical and numb. "I understand."

* * *

><p>Overhead, the lights dipped and flickered, and Garrus counted painful instants before they surged back again. Another deep shudder tore through the walls. He spun, his gaze locking on the guards and the door.<p>

The silence settled eventually, taut and febrile. He breathed in air that was all dust and heat and the oppressive press of too many people in the same room for too damn long.

"Vakarian, sir?"

"Yes?"

"Sir, you need to see this."

He bit back the urge to growl at the soldier to clarify, but he couldn't, he _shouldn't_. The soldier was as rigidly apprehensive as the rest of them, and he was still staring up at him, green eyes too wide and his teeth clicking against each other.

"Okay," Garrus said. Brusquely, he leaned over the soldier's console. "What am I looking at?"

"This is right above us," the soldier said, his voice thick.

Garrus stared at the screen, his stomach knotting as he picked out the details. Silent and blurred and _vast_, the uncurling claws of a Reaper as it sank into the ground. Behind it, he saw the legs of another, and another, smoke rippling between them as they plunged.

"Okay," Garrus said. "Pull up a map of this building. Find me a way out of here that preferably does not include walking outside and into those bastards."

"Preferably?" The soldier laughed, the sound shaken and uncertain.

"Quickly. And find me transport locations, shuttles, ships, anything," Garrus told him, the words thrown over his shoulder as he turned. Seven steps took him to the Primarch, his gaze locked on incoming Fleet data.

"Spirits, you're seeing this?" Fedorian's head lifted, his eyes dazed and glassy beneath the bright stripes of his markings. "They're tearing through our ships up there."

"I know." Somewhere above, something heavy punched through metal and stone, the impact rolling across the ceiling. "Sir," Garrus said. "You're going to have to consider leaving."

"Vakarian, I said no to that last time."

"No, sir. You said no to me. I'm talking about you, and I'm talking about getting you out of here. They're tearing the city apart, and right now, we've got three very big Reaper ships right overhead."

Fedorian straightened up, the weight of his gaze raking and thoughtful. "You have a plan?"

"I have an idea," Garrus conceded. "General Corinthus is at Menae command. They're holding. It's tough, but they're holding."

Fedorian's eyes narrowed. "That's a fair distance to have to clear."

"I know, sir." Garrus sucked down a hurried breath and added, "We can't go any deeper. The Reapers are here because they _know_. They know all they have to do is pull the city apart piece by piece, and they can do it."

"Get me details," Fedorian said. "Details and a workable plan, and I'll consider it."

"Ten minutes, sir."

Garrus stalked back across the floor, aware of the incessant, rapid chatter of voices, words cutting across each other, names and numbers and too many questions, edged with panic.

"Sir," the soldier said, motioning him closer. "Got something for you."

"Good." Garrus paused, running a quick, appraising glance over him. "What's your name?"

"Arrian, sir."

"Okay. Talk me through it."

"We've got a west-facing exit four floors up," the soldier said, his fingers busy at the keyboard. "Contained on the street level as well, sir."

"How far?"

"Three hundred metres," the soldier admitted. "It'd be cramped, sir, but it'd be cover."

"Okay."

"We've got shuttle bays here," Arrian said, his hand flitting across the screen. "What I can't get a hold of is whether they're still, well. Good to go."

"That's okay," Garrus said. "It's a start. Get the word out to any scout groups on the ground, see if they can give us a heads-up."

"Sir, I can order a squad out to recon the area."

"No," Garrus said firmly. "No time. There's nothing closer?"

"No, sir."

"Alright." Garrus stared at the screen for a long moment. Something treacherously close to exhilaration settled itself in his stomach. "Nice work. Keep me updated on movement out there, and be ready to move."

"When, sir?"

"Soon as I talk to the Primarch."

* * *

><p>The heat hit Garrus first, then the searing reek of smoke and fire-blackened stone. He paused, staying coiled while his visor gauged the distance to the next corner. He had a few paces shy of three hundred metres of serviceable cover – <em>holes punched through the roof, split through the walls, sunlight and dust pouring through in bright swirls<em> – and part of him hoped that they might clear the whole closed-in corridor before calling down _too_ much attention.

_Eighteen people_, he thought. _Eighteen and one of those was the fucking _Primarch_ and he had to get them through to the shuttle bay and pray that there'd be something there that could still be wrestled into the air._

Somewhere above, he could hear the half-muffled clamour of battle, the rattle of rounds clipping walls and the implacable shuddering tremors that _he knew _were the Reapers' main beam weapons.

_Slicing through buildings and glass and water and rock like they were cutting paper. _

"Bartus, with me," Garrus said. "Moving up in pairs, and let's keep it quiet and quick."

"Right with you."

Each pace light-footed, Garrus edged to the corner, aware of Bartus just behind him, his breathing ragged and uneven. No shadows lurched across the ground, and the brief glance he risked showed him empty walls and the floor, slanting up. As briskly, he pushed on up the rise of the corridor.

Footsteps pounded hard overhead, and he curled his grip tighter against his trigger.

"Bartus," Garrus muttered.

"I hear them."

"Stay there." Garrus flattened one shoulder against the wall, easing forward until he could see up and through a soot-scorched breach. Movement blurred across the gap, startlingly rapid.

"Friendly?" Bartus hissed.

"No." Carefully, Garrus unhooked a grenade. He pitched it up and through and gritted his teeth when the thud of the explosion shook the walls. Through tumbling dust, he snapped, "Faster, now."

The corridor sloped up further, the last archway a half-crumbled mess of buckled pillars. He picked his way through the rubble, stepping over something that might've been a metal spar. Sunlight lanced the cluttered avenue ahead, and some sickened, knifing thought understood that the crumpled shapes – _so many of them, heaped up against corners and flat on the ground and some of them armoured and a lot of them not_ – were fallen turians.

"Okay," Garrus said, clipped. "We've got ourselves too much open space ahead. Move fast and shoot anything that isn't us."

Bracketed on one end by the crumpled bulk of something – _a building, apartment complex, shopping strip, could've been anything_ – and shadowed at the other by high towers, the avenue was dotted with broken stone and debris, flames hazing the air.

Half-crouched, Garrus crossed the first open swathe of ground, settling himself behind a melted lump that he supposed had been a skycar. "Arrian, you read me?"

"I hear you, sir."

"I want you watching the sky," Garrus said. "Anything big moves, you _think_ anything big moves, you call out."

"Yes, sir."

Another hurried rush of movement had him fifteen feet further, curled behind a fallen stone slab, black at the edges and still hot. "Bartus, I'm reading movement."

"Yeah," Bartus answered. "Got them."

He waited through another impatient, prickling moment, his gaze flitting across the debris. He saw their shadows first, sliding long and jagged across the ground. _Not husks_, Garrus realised, and wondered why the hell that would even matter.

_Not husks, something else, something bigger, heavier, unwieldy in the way they lifted arms that were half flesh and half weapon. _

He inched behind the slab, jaw clenched as the air above him was torn apart by gunfire. He fumbled for another grenade and tossed it blindly. The shuddering impact bought him silence and the stink of burned skin. Seconds later he was moving, vaulting over the slab and running. Desperately, he crashed hard into the sputtering remains of another skycar and threw himself lower. His visor flashed out movement ahead, left and right and closing fast.

Garrus lodged his rifle into the crook of his shoulder and lunged upright.

His first shot sent one of them – _not quite Reapers, Reaper troops, whatever the hell they were_ – sprawling backwards, its throat opened. The second spun one of them hard, and the follow-up shattered its skull.

He was vaguely aware of the others behind him, shooting in tandem, forcing the creatures into retreat. Someone pitched a grenade, and it skittered through the debris, the explosion sending another five of the bastards back. Viciously, Garrus grinned and fired again and again in brutal succession.

"Vakarian, sir? You hear me?" Arrian's voice, and frantic.

"I hear you. What do you see?"

"Something big."

Garrus dropped to his knees. He heard it first, the low, aching thrum as it moved, unfolding claws and swaying its way forward. "Move," Garrus growled. "All of us. Moving now and shooting while we run. Clear the avenue."

The Reaper surged above the high towers, and the searing flash of its main weapon cut the air.

"Bartus," Garrus snapped, already halfway over the skycar. "Stay with the Primarch and follow me."

Steeling jangling nerves, he ran. He managed three ragged shots as he hurtled, one swinging wide and the other two clipping onrushing creatures. From somewhere above, he _felt_ the heat and the pressure and the blinding surge of the Reaper's beam weapon. He flung himself further, booted feet skidding through wreckage that was too hot. He hit the flat of a wall hard, driving the breath from his chest.

He spun, settling his rifle and lifting it in the same motion. Two shots over Bartus' shoulder sent one of the creatures staggering back. Another three tidied four metres of space in front of Arrian, and then he was gesturing for them to hurry, trying to shout it, his voice cracking and dry.

The Reaper swung around, slow and implacable, and its main weapon sliced across the avenue again.

Garrus turned, fumbling his way along the wall, his mouth full of dust and desperation. "Here," he said thickly. "Through here."

He shouldered his way through a gap in the stone, jagged and dark. The bright flood of his flashlight revealed the edges of desks and consoles, tipped over and silent. "Arrian, you with me?"

Footsteps answered, the soldier following as he staggered through, Bartus behind him. "Still here."

"We close enough?"

Arrian tapped up his omni-tool, his fingers slipping against the keypad. "Yeah," he said, and gulped down another breath. "Yeah. Up through this complex, and we should get ourselves into the transport hangar."

The wall trembled, and the sudden flare of the Reaper's beam lit the room. Garrus lurched away, moving between toppled desks. Beneath his feet, the ground shook. He motioned the others on faster, pushing up and through the doorway. They were running too fast, he knew, running too fast and too recklessly, plunging through the darkness.

Five minutes took them up a slanting walkway, and into a high-domed chamber, wrapped in gloom. Another ten, and Garrus made himself stop and pause and scan the area.

Shuttles, most of them pointing the right way and the transport bay doors open, letting in the fierce daylight.

"Bartus," Garrus said. "I'm reading no movement. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Okay." He turned, his gaze falling on the Primarch, and the soldiers behind him, all of them scuffed and exhausted. "Six by six and moving into the shuttles. I'll keep watch through pre-flight checks."

He was on the far side of the first shuttle when the Primarch caught his shoulder and turned him.

"Sir, we need you on board."

"Of course," Fedorian said, his gaze searching Garrus' face. "You're coming with me."

"Sir," Garrus said, to fill the space between them.

"This was your idea."

_Dad_, he thought, unbidden and painful. "The city," he said uselessly.

"We've ordered evacuation. We've sanctioned resistance." Fedorian's head tilted. "That's not the easy answer."

"No," Garrus admitted. The tiredness surged up, marrow-deep. His grip slackened on his rifle. "It's really not."

"Get in the shuttle, Vakarian."

It was the useful choice and it was the obvious choice and he _knew_ that. Numbly, Garrus nodded.

"Sir," Arrian said. "We're good to go. Shuttles two and three seconds behind."

"Good," Garrus responded. He shouldered his rifle and reached for the shuttle door. He hauled himself up and sat heavily, his legs giving way, his elbows landing hard against his knees.

"When we break atmosphere," Fedorian said. "Let Menae command know they'll be having visitors."

"Yes, sir." Arrian leaned into the controls, and the shuttle stirred. "Shuttles two and three, preparing departure, over."

Garrus closed his eyes and heard the crackling buzz of the replies from somewhere behind. Instants later, the shuttle was lifting and swaying into the air, scything out and into the punishing glare of the sunlight.

He heard Arrian mutter something about fire, and he shoved back upright. Awkwardly, he stumbled into the cockpit as the shuttle slewed sideways. He slammed one hand against the archway and asked, "How does it look?"

Wordlessly, Arrian shook his head.

Garrus pushed his tongue against the back of his teeth and tasted dust and metal. _Broken towers and it was all wreathed in flame and it had been a city hours ago._ He saw the huge shapes of Reaper ships as they wove their way towards the ground. He saw the bright patches of fire that had been clusters of buildings, and as Palaven sank away below, he turned away.


	36. Meetings

_Such a big thank-you to everyone who's interested in and following this story. Thank you all so much. As always, Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty-Six – Meetings**_

The low thrum of laserfire dragged Garrus awake. He sat, teeth clenched and glaring up at the pitted ceiling, while his thoughts tidied themselves up. Five times in as many hours he'd woken, he reckoned, the walls and floor trembling with the weight of whatever the hell was happening on the surface, so many metres above.

He'd slept in his armour, awkwardly and uncertainly, too aware of the noise on the edge of his thoughts.

He swung his legs off the mattress and sat, gloved hands clamped over his knees. The overhead lights spilled white and harsh over the lines of the desk and the buzzing console and his rifle, the pieces snapped together and gleaming. He made himself wait out another ten minutes, breathing slowly, the dry air catching against the back of his mouth.

As he had every morning since he'd arrived – _since he'd stepped off the shuttle and into the bedlam of combat up here that never seemed to give way, never seemed to ease _– he fumbled the comm unit on and listened to the patient crackle of the static.

"Sol?" Garrus asked. "Sol, are you getting this?"

"…out of the mess hall," she said, her voice buckling under the distance. "Connection's shaky."

"I know. How's your ship?"

"We're holding together." She breathed in, deeply and too ragged. "We're on double shifts. Moving all the time. Supply chains are a bitch to handle."

"Yeah." Never slowing down, Garrus knew, ships weaving their way through the fleet and grabbing at medi-gel and tech supplies in the bare instants before the Reapers turned lethal attention on them again.

"How's it looking where you are?"

"The same," Garrus answered drily. "We're dug in and not moving, but they push at us every day."

"Yes. Yeah. You speak to Dad?"

"Couldn't get through yesterday," he admitted.

"Okay." She paused, and he half-heard the clatter of footsteps, and someone shouting something to her. "In twelve hours we're swinging back around towards Palaven. Won't be landing, but I might be able to wrestle a clearer connection from there."

"Thanks." Garrus hesitated, his fingers slipping against the comm unit. "Stay safe, Sol."

"You too."

The same words, he thought, that they'd been saying to each other for days, strained and exhausted and anchoring at the same time.

He checked the console next, running appraising eyes over the night shift's watch reports. The fierce tangle of names and numbers that was the unrelenting onslaught of the Reaper ground troops, and he tried not to wonder how many they might have, how many that could keep falling out of the sky, wreathed in flame. He followed up with the comm channel chatter records, and it was the same as it had been yesterday, bleak and unremitting.

Fragments coming in from the fleets and less from Palaven and anything from outside was bouncing in from the Citadel via scout ships and not a whisper from Earth.

He flicked the screen off before it could surge up and drown him again, the lacerating awareness that he might never find her. That he'd likely never find her. That _he needed to stop fucking thinking like this_.

Garrus exhaled sharply, the breath shuddering out of his chest. He uncoiled upright and slung his rifle over his shoulder in one practiced motion. Outside, he pushed his way through the crowded corridor, half-listening as the soldiers swapped rumours and half-breathless reports of the surface. He'd been up there eight hours ago, staring at the jagged dark sweep of the rocks and waiting for the tiniest hint of movement.

_Waiting and waiting, rigid with it, exhausted with it, waiting and not looking at the silvery curve of Palaven somewhere above. _

Garrus rounded the corner, ignoring the sudden burst of conversation from the mess hall. He ducked under another archway and took himself down the last stretch of the corridor, and into the ops centre.

"Vakarian," Corinthus called, gesturing him across. "You're up early."

"Couldn't sleep," Garrus admitted. "What do you have?"

"The Citadel," Corinthus said. "The Council. We got a comm line through long enough to relay messages."

Garrus blinked. "And they said?"

"Hold."

"Hold," Garrus echoed, and wondered if his own voice was as hollow as Corinthus' had been.

"The Primarch's pushing for a meeting. Something official." Corinthus' expression hardened. "Anything official, even if it means heading off-planet to track it down. We're fielding incoming messages pledging support, but we need weapons and troops right now, not words."

"So no reinforcements."

"We've got some coming in from the colonies."

"And they've been hit as badly," Garrus said, his tone sharpening.

"I'm not turning them away," Corinthus snapped. "I'm losing men by the hundred down here, every day."

"I know. I know." Garrus exhaled. "I'm sorry."

Corinthus shook his head. "It's fine."

_No_, Garrus thought. _Not fine at all. Running on numbers and the numbers change by the minute and all it's going to do is keep happening. _

"We've got clearance to send wounded," Corinthus said, slightly wry.

"Could they stop us?"

Corinthus laughed, low and empty. "Without the necessary paperwork? I think they might try."

"Nice." Garrus leaned against the side of the desk, his gaze skipping across the glow of maps and terrain lay-outs. "We can make that a priority, but we'll have to be careful."

"I agree." Corinthus' green eyes flickered, and Garrus wondered if his thoughts were angling towards the same dreadful conclusion.

_They had far more dead than wounded and the clustered defense ring overhead couldn't – shouldn't – be turned into an open door for a handful of casualties who'd more than likely die before they ever saw Citadel space._

"Anything else?" Garrus asked heavily, the words a mechanical distraction.

"Nothing new. Comms are going up and down. The fleet's holding. Barely, but they're holding."

"Palaven?"

"The same," Corinthus answered, terse.

"Okay." Garrus nodded. "Give me something to do."

Corinthus' head tilted. "It'll be on the surface."

"Good," Garrus said fiercely.

"Head on up and relieve the squad near the comm tower. Take five soldiers with you, your choice."

"I can do that. Anything specific, or are we just shooting anything that points its ugly head at us?"

Corinthus' teeth flashed in a vicious smile. "That sounds about right."

* * *

><p>The air was thick, hazy with smoke and the drift of dust above the sawtooth rocks. Garrus paused, rifle tight against his shoulder. Forty minutes since they'd sent the night cycle squad back underground, and twenty of those had been spent pushing back the waves of husks that stalked slowly and inexorably between the uneven stones.<p>

"Clear?" Garrus asked.

"Clear."

"Okay. Arrian, get yourself up the tower. Shout if anything needs tidying."

"Yes, sir." He slung his rifle into its harness and reached for the ladder. "You know, they always decide to rush us whenever we're actually trying to get something done."

"Yeah, yeah," Garrus retorted mildly. "Get it done quick and maybe you can join in the fun when it happens."

"Thanks, sir. Really."

Beneath his feet, the ground trembled. Garrus swallowed and looked up and over the high edge of the rocks. Toweringly huge, a Reaper moved there, its long jointed claws sliding over the ground.

"It's okay," Garrus hissed. "It's okay. It's not looking at us. It's nowhere near us."

"Yeah," one of his soldiers muttered. "Great."

"Stay still," Garrus said.

The Reaper swayed its way behind the spearing shape of an outcrop, the bulk of its hull turning away. Garrus waited, his fingers locked around his rifle and his shoulders prickling. "Warn North Base they've got a Reaper walking towards them."

"Yes, sir."

He dragged his gaze from it – _the terrible height of it, the size of it, the sinuous rippling way it moved_ – and glanced back at the comm tower. "Arrian?"

"Tower's good, sir."

He heard the flat, apprehensive note in the soldier's voice. "What isn't?"

"I've got midrange scanners online up here, sir. We've got company."

"Ground troops?" Garrus asked.

"Looks like."

"Okay." Garrus scrutinized the jumble of stone and dust and the rolling slope of the ground. "Form up with me and we'll use the rocks as cover. Arrian, you got a guess as to how long we've got?"

"Six minutes, sir. You'll be reading them within seconds, I'd guess."

"Good." Garrus forced his voice steady and added, "They get here and we push them back. Time your shots and do not let them get close."

He settled his shoulders against the rough press of the stone, part of him aware of their voices as the others spoke, low-toned and almost in whispers as they waited. _Every day_, he thought. Every day had been like this, knife-edged silence and the grinding knowledge that they were defending, pushing _back_, jumping madly into any tiny gap the Reaper troops offered up.

_It wasn't an offensive op and it hadn't been since the Reapers had come shuddering out of the clouds over Palaven. _

Three minutes later, his visor was spilling out proximity warnings, and he heard the lurching, thudding sound of footfalls against the ground. He eased his finger around the trigger and waited, gaze pinned on the gap in the rocks.

"Contact," Arrian snapped, from somewhere to his left.

"I see them." Garrus lifted his rifle and sighted.

Husks and at least five of the bigger ones, the lumbering monsters that lugged wide-barreled weapons around in place of their arms. Three viper-quick shots in succession toppled the husks, and someone else's grenade scattered the others. Garrus tilted his aiming angle down a notch and knocked one of the others off its feet when it scrambled upright.

"New signals, sir."

"Reading them," Garrus answered.

"They're moving fast," one of his soldiers muttered. "Too fast."

"Hold steady." He edged away from the rock wall. He could hear them, whatever they were, feet snapping hard and rhythmic against the ground as they ran. _Marching_, he thought, and something cold chased down his spine.

He steeled himself motionless until he saw shadows lurching through the gap in the rocks. Reaper ground troops followed – _troops, units, Reapers, and absurdly Garrus wondered why he was even _trying_ to classify the bastards_ - jagged and all angles and moving like they knew how to, rifles clasped hard in taloned hands.

"What," Garrus mumbled, half to himself. "What the _hell_ is that?"

The creature swayed into the frame of his scope and Garrus froze.

_This thing had been a turian_.

It was one of _them_, and the awful realization clawed its way into his gut. This thing had been a turian and it had been changed and warped and now all he could see in its face was the fierce blue blaze of its eyes.

His hand found the trigger, and he watched as it crumpled, half its head blown away. He swallowed against the twisting, sick feeling that had lodged itself in his throat and lined up his next target.

Three hours later he sat beneath the sterile white lights of the command bunker and listened to his own voice, flat with the truth.

"They're us," he said. "Or they used to be. Like husks. Those things out there – the things that look like us – that's because they _are_ us."

"You knew about this?" Corinthus asked.

"I didn't know they'd do it us. Makes sense though," he admitted. "I'd seen husks before. Should've thought that they'd do the same to us."

Heavily, Corinthus sat, his hands clamping hard over the edge of his desk. "You killed them?"

"We did."

"Alright."

_Casualties twice over, _Garrus thought bitterly, and bit back the urge to say it out loud. "General, sir?"

Corinthus' head flinched up, his eyes glassy with exhaustion. "Yes?"

"We'll need to send word out. I doubt we were the first squad to see them, but it's not something we should sit on."

"Yes, I agree. And then what?"

"We keep kicking back at them," Garrus snarled. "We keep at it until we push them back. Every day we're still breathing is a day they haven't won."

"You believe that?"

"We have to."

"Yeah. Yes." Corinthus' shoulders sagged. "I know it. I just, I look out there and they fill up the sky."

"Yeah," Garrus said. "I know."

* * *

><p>Shepard listened to the terse quiet of the glass-walled ward room, too aware of the low-toned sound of machines – <em>tagging his heartbeat, his breathing, the movement of blood under his skin<em> – and Alenko's supine silence.

She'd spent the hour since docking on her feet, and briefly she wondered if she looked as grimy as she felt, as if the red dust of Mars was still under her nails and behind her teeth.

_Empty words from the Council and nothing but the vague promise of support, _maybe_, perhaps. _They'd sighed and nodded and commiserated, and she supposed she should've known she'd get nothing out of them but an agreement for a shipment of shiny new equipment.

And some terrible part of her understood – _painful and raw and still she understood_ – that _of course_ they would step away from it, step away and take the time to secure their own worlds, turn their attention to their own borders.

"Okay," she said to the empty air. "Take care, Kaidan."

Out in the pristine white corridor, she left the ward staff with her details and a reminder that she'd be happy to hear from the patient – _her tongue caught on the word, rough and impersonal and blank_ – whenever he woke. She crossed the white floor into the wider, brightly lit area, all chairs and floor-to-ceiling windows, vaguely aware of quickening footsteps behind.

"Commander Shepard?"

Shepard turned, halfway between grinning and staring. "Doctor Chakwas?"

"How are you, Commander?"

"About to say that I'm surprised to see you, but then I remembered that this is, after all, a hospital." Shepard scrubbed a hand through her hair. "I'm okay."

"Good." Chakwas' gaze swept over her, scrutinizing. "We've had reports coming in concerning Earth."

"Yeah."

"Commander, if you've got time," Chakwas said.

"Of course," Shepard said, cutting across her.

"I actually have an office now," the doctor said archly. "This way."

Shepard trailed her through the bustle of another crowded ward area, up curling white stairs and into the spotless square of her office. She grabbed the spare chair, spun it around, and said, "Nice, Doc. You been camped out here long?"

"Just over five months." Chakwas sat, long hands clasped over her knees. "I've been keeping busy with an R and D lab for the most part. Coordinating with Admiral Hackett."

"He's been busy," Shepard remarked.

"Indeed. We've been implementing new medi-gel release systems. Pushing for supply coordination through the fleets, working out probable casualty numbers." The doctor's voice faltered slightly. "The less enjoyable side of it."

"You do what needs to be done," Shepard said, not censuring.

"Yes. Yes, we do." Her head lifted, her gaze incisive as she regarded Shepard. "You were on Earth."

She opened her mouth to say something irreverent and failed. "Yeah. I was. It was, well."

"I can't pretend to understand," Chakwas said softly.

"Yeah." Shepard looked at the immaculately organized desk, the wall, the clear curve of the window. "You heard about Kaidan?"

"Yes, I've seen him. He'll be alright." Chakwas paused. "Eventually."

"It was a mech," Shepard said. "Or something very like a mech. A machine. Prettied up to look human. Just wrapped its hands around his neck and lifted him. Not really what I was expecting to find."

"He's alive," Chakwas said, a little sharper. "He's here, now, and he'll be looked after."

"I know." Shepard planted her elbows on her knees. "Long few days. That's all."

"Do you have a plan?"

"Go back and shout at the Council some more." She hesitated, her gaze on the pale stretch of the desk. "Hey, Doc. Look. This is probably out of line for me to ask, but, well. I need to arrange medical gear, and my medbay is embarrassingly empty right now. You wouldn't happen to want to give up this sparkly new office, would you?"

Chakwas smiled. "I think that's something I could manage, Commander."

Something very close to relief washed through Shepard, and she nodded. "I should warn you that I've still got Joker living in the cockpit."

This time, Chakwas' smile broke into a laugh. "Of course. How long are you on the ground here?"

"No rush."

"Then I'll tidy up here and see you on board within three hours, say. Do you want me to organize med supplies?"

Shepard nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, thank you."

_Bits and pieces of words_, Shepard thought, and she wondered if it helped, if it changed anything, if it was the only raw choice left, to talk as if such small threadbare complications _mattered_.

Her comm unit buzzed, and Udina demanded, "Shepard? Are you there?"

She gritted her teeth, considered telling him she most certainly was not, and answered, "What can I do for you, Councilor?"

"I've had word from the turian councilor," he said crisply. "He'd like to arrange a meeting."

"Didn't we already do that? You remember, the one where they all told us to fuck off back to whatever rock we crawled out from under?"

Udina exhaled sharply. "This is different. My office, twenty minutes."

* * *

><p>Shepard sat in the stifling quiet of her cabin and tried to quell the unhelpful whirl of her thoughts. She could feel the surge of the engines, and seconds later, she heard Joker's affirmation that they'd cleared the Citadel docks smoothly. She pushed her hands through her hair and knew that she needed to rest.<p>

_Needed to wrap herself in the empty sheets and will herself into sleep. _

She shoved upright, her fingers curling against her palms. Moments later, she was outside and in the elevator, glowering at the blank gleam of the walls. In the CIC, she paused by the constellation charts long enough to nod to Traynor.

"Hey, Commander." Joker swiveled his chair long enough to throw her a half-smile. "Want to play spot-the-Reaper with me?"

"That's really not funny." She leaned against the co-pilot's seat. "Did Chakwas come up and bully you yet?"

"Twice," he retorted.

"It's for your own good."

"Sure it is." Joker hesitated, one hand flitting up to yank the brim of his cap lower. "So. Palaven."

"The moon," Shepard corrected, and somehow her voice stayed even.

"Whichever. You got a plan yet?"

His gaze stayed on the main screen, and she knew he wasn't talking about the Primarch, or the Councilor's proposal, or just how exactly he was going to dance the _Normandy_ through circling Reapers and down onto Menae.

"I'll get there," Shepard said, and it was half a lie and half lurching, desperate hope.

Joker laughed, a small, tired sound. "Let me know."

"I will," she said, and tapped the back of his chair. "Give me a shout when we're close."

"Always. I'll let you know if we're about to get attacked by a Reaper, as well."

"Still not funny."

Back in her quarters, she showered quickly, folded herself in a towel and wished she'd wasted more time under the scalding fall of the water. She dug shorts and a vest out of the smaller locker and burrowed under the covers. Half an hour later she turned over again and glared up at the ceiling.

Sleep claimed her eventually, and her dreams were full of fire and the acrid taste of ash.

She jolted awake, hands locked in the sheets and heartbeat thundering. She checked the clock, swore, and kicked the tangle of fabric aside. Once she'd wrestled herself into her fatigues, she stalked back down into the CIC. She found it quiet, that layered hush that always seemed to come with the night cycle, workstations on low lights and most of the crew banished to rest.

At the constellation charts, Traynor half-flinched into a salute. "Sorry, Commander. I didn't see you."

"Not a problem," Shepard said mildly. "I'm sorry we haven't really had time to talk so far."

The young woman's answering smile was thin and worn under the soft spots of light. "Not at all, Commander. I understand, I do."

"Joker mentioned you were with the retrofit team."

Traynor nodded. "Yes, Commander. It's a beautiful ship."

"That she is," Shepard said. "You're settling in alright?"

"Yes." Traynor's eyes shifted, dark and shadowed. "Better circumstances would've been, well, better."

"I hear that." Shepard leaned against the rail, her gaze drifting idly across the bright splashes of the star patterns. "Normally you get to agree to being hauled out of the lab."

"Hah, yes." Traynor's expression relaxed slightly. "It was pure luck, actually, Commander. I'd come in early because I'd planned to leave just before shift change."

"Never underestimate luck. Pure, dumb or otherwise."

Traynor laughed. "I'll remember that, Commander."

"Anything come in this afternoon that I need to hear?"

"Nothing vital, Commander. Daily reports from Admiral Hackett's personnel. I can forward them for you, if you want."

"It's when you're swamped by paperwork that you know you're back on the job," Shepard muttered. "Yeah. I'll have a look at them."

"Anything else, Commander?"

"No. Not now. Thanks, Traynor."

Fifteen minutes later she'd tracked through the armoury, and padded her way across the crew deck and into the rec room. Deserted this late, and she knew she should be steeling the raw rattle of her nerves and resting. Instead, she yanked one of the hanging bags along its frame until it swayed over the mat. Stepping back slightly, she squared her shoulders and slammed gloved hands against it until the punishing rhythm drove her thoughts blank.

* * *

><p>Garrus sat with his back against uneven stone and looked up at the curve of Palaven, fierce against the sweep of stars beyond. Half in shadow and half scarred with flame and he stared at it until he thought he could see the fires rippling. Under the encasing weight of his armour he felt filthy, the dust of Menae on his skin and between his teeth, sour and gritty.<p>

Reluctantly, he uncoiled upright. He had to chivvy his squad on – _midday patrol, whatever the hell counted for midday up here, carving a path through rocks and Reaper troops_ – and already he'd let five silent minutes stretch into ten.

"Okay." He scanned the steep rise of the ground beyond the rocks. "Let's move on."

Wordlessly, they obeyed. They were wrung through, and he could see it in the way they were too wiry, their eyes too glassy. Strung out on double shifts and brutally conserved supplies and he wondered how many more days Corinthus could drag out of his command base.

The afternoon wore away beneath drifting skeins of smoke and the rapid thud of footsteps as another cluster of husks charged through jagged boulders. Garrus shouted the same orders he was sure he'd shouted the day before, and the day before that, and his hands settled into their familiar, blind pattern against his rifle. Afterwards, he motioned them on again, his boots sliding through loose gravel.

His comm unit sputtered, and he heard Corinthus say, "Vakarian, you hearing me?"

"Just," he answered. He gestured to his squad, motioning them behind the rise of an outcropping. "What's up?"

"How far are you?"

"Three clicks out, bearing south. Why?"

"Bad news," Corinthus said heavily.

"The usual kind."

"I'm serious. Primarch's shuttle went down."

Garrus flinched. "_What?_"

"Just what I said. I've got a team heading out to pick through the wreckage. No one's responding."

"What do we do?"

"Right now?" Corinthus drew in a gulping, shallow breath. "Nothing. Just keep on with your patrol."

"Sir," Garrus said.

"I'll keep you updated."

The quiet returned, broken only by the slow hiss of the wind cutting through the rocks. Slowly, Garrus turned. "You all heard that?"

Crouched down, his rifle tipped against his shoulder, Arrian nodded slowly. "Yeah. What do you think?"

"I think we won't know anymore until we get ourselves back to base. And yes," he added. "I know that's useless. But right now all we can do is keep moving. Alright?"

"Yes, sir."

An hour took them through a valley, gouged through steep rock walls and worryingly narrow. The footing there was treacherous, the each careful step mired by loose shale. On one side, the blackened metal frame of what might've been a shuttle tipped precariously close to the edge. Garrus hurried them up the last stretch of the slope, and out onto open ground, raked by the wind.

Above, the sky was grey with clouds or smoke, clinging to tapering peaks. Somewhere – _too close, Garrus thought, far too close_ – there was the shrieking whine of something heavy ploughing full-bore into stone. The dull thump of the impact trembled through the ground.

"Us or them?"

"Them, sir," one of his soldiers answered briskly. "They're moving fast and closing on us."

"Numbers?"

"Twelve that I'm reading."

"Okay," Garrus said steadily. "Just like last time. Let them come to us and make them regret it."

Husks broke through first, their feet hammering hard as they ran. One flung grenade scattered most of them, and the two that lumbered back up were sent toppling moments after.

"Sir," Arrian called, breathlessly. "I'm reading more signals."

"I hear you." Garrus rested his rifle against his shoulder. He fixed his attention on three of them – _them, things that were shaped as if they were almost still turian _– all of them moving maddeningly fast. He tightened his sightline and fired, and fired again, his fingers flicking over the trigger in practiced, smooth movements. A third shot sent another one of them sprawling back, most of its throat missing.

Garrus spun, half aware of the thudding of footsteps somewhere behind him, closing fast. He angled the rifle up in the same motion and found himself staring up and then up again at some Reaper monstrosity he was fairly certain he'd never seen quite this close before. The creature charged, head dropping low and jaws gaping. Garrus fired in response, his hand juddering against the rifle. He backed away, his feet sliding over the uneven ground, gravel catching beneath his boots. One shot scythed over the creature's head, and the second ripped a chunk from the hulking curve of its shoulder.

Garrus' back hit unyielding rock and he swore. He shifted the rifle, and somehow fumbled another shot before the creature grasped for it, clawed fingers wrapping around the barrel and yanking. The rifle tore away from his hands and for a brief, wavering instant, panic eclipsed thought and he froze.

The creature's head dipped closer. Garrus threw himself sideways, his shoulder jarring hard against the ground. Another desperate surge of motion had him reaching for his pistol. The creature's hand closed hard on his arm, jolting him forward. Aim spoiled, he fired anyway, ragged and desperate. Most of the round snapped wide, driving into loose shale. Another breath-stopping blow shoved him further, the creature's claws screaming against his armour. Furiously, he slammed the butt of the pistol against the monster's wrist, and when it recoiled, he emptied the weapon into its open mouth.

"Sir?"

Garrus levered himself away from the rocks and past the sprawled bulk of the creature. "I'm okay," he answered.

"You're sure?" Arrian asked.

"He threw me around," Garrus admitted. He leaned down, wincing when he scooped his rifle up. "I'll be fine. We all done here?"

"Yes, sir. Clear."

The last stretches of the trek back to operations proved mercifully quiet, the wind-scarred path winding through jutting hills and down the last slope. When they'd crossed through the last guard point, Garrus ordered his squad off to try and rest. He discovered Corinthus simmering in one of the above-ground bunkers, his gaze on the glowing spread of a map.

"Anything on Fedorian?"

"No," Corinthus answered heavily. "Once my scout group tells me what I think we already know, I'll issue a general report."

"Yeah," Garrus said. The knowledge of it swam in his thoughts, curiously numb, that it suddenly didn't matter, not really, the way he'd begged the Primarch away from Palaven, the way they'd shadowed him through the broken ruins of the city. The way they'd brought him here and then the days had toppled into each other and it was another name alongside the dozens he read on the daily KIA lists.

Corinthus turned, his face shifting into a frown. "What happened?"

"What?"

"You're a mess."

"You know the really big bastards out there?" Garrus shrugged. "The big ones that we always say you shouldn't get too close to?"

"Yes?"

"I got too close to one of them."

Corinthus barked out a laugh. "Right. Anything else?"

"No. Ground troops, but they were sporadic. Looking to find themselves lucky."

"Alright. Go get some rest, Vakarian."

"Yes, sir."

Back in the cramped quiet of his quarters, Garrus peeled his armour off piece by piece. When he touched the side of his arm, swollen and heavy with bruising, he swore. He turned his attention to his rifle next, smoothing out the day's scrapes inch by inch until it was arranged in gleaming pieces on the rack. The pistol followed, and the battered, dull parts of his armour, still thick with grit.

He flung himself onto the mattress and drifted halfway to dreaming. The comm unit woke him, and Corinthus' voice, insistent.

"_Yes_," Garrus grated, and slapped a hand over the button. "I'm here. I'm awake. What is it?"

"You'll want to hear this," Corinthus said. "We've got a ship coming in."

"A ship." Garrus sat up, his head all full of the fog of sleep. "Okay. One of ours?"

"No. They cut through the Reapers and they're on their way in. We steadied communications enough to get a hail up. They're Alliance."

"Alliance?" Garrus pushed back a sudden, absurd surge of exhilaration. He reached for his armour and forced himself to slow down. _He didn't know anything_, he thought. He didn't really know anything and his fingers were skidding clumsily against his armour. "Okay. I'm on my way."

* * *

><p>The ruins of Menae rolled beneath the shuttle, pitted and dark. Shepard braced herself against the back of the pilot's chair and stared. She saw serrated outcroppings wreathed in smoke, the sweeping landscape below seared dry. Between the steep slopes, the ground was thick with Reaper troops as they clawed their way forward, spilling over barricades and surging up against blockaded gateways.<p>

"Holy hell," Vega muttered. "Look at it."

"Yeah," Shepard acknowledged. "They're taking one hell of a beating."

The shuttle tilted, turning past a shallow valley, gouged roughly through the rocks and cluttered with smouldering wreckage. Beyond, the high grey walls of the command compound rose up. Turian soldiers stalked the perimeter and the walkways above, shoulders hunched against whirling dust.

Shepard leaned onto the comm and said, "General Corinthus? This is Commander Shepard again. Do you read us?"

"I read you," came the indistinct answer. "And we see you."

"Good. We'll be on the ground in minutes." Shepard hesitated. "General, I've come with a request from the Council. We'll need to talk with your Primarch."

"That's going to be difficult," he replied, and Shepard could've sworn he sounded vaguely sardonic.

"I understand that, General. We can discuss it on the ground."

"Of course, Commander. I'll be putting you in contact with Operative Vakarian while you're here. From what I understand, he's," Corinthus said, the words breaking apart beneath a sudden swell of static.

Shepard froze. "Sorry," she managed. "Say again, General? In full?"

The general repeated it, as measured, syllables that were shatteringly familiar.

"Thank you, General. We'll talk soon."

She straightened up, her hand slipping off the comm button. When the shuttle slewed sideways, she mechanically reached for the back of the chair again. _Slow down_, she thought. Words were just words and the treacherous connection had garbled the general's voice. Words were just words and she wanted to be on the ground and moving fast enough that she might be able to ignore the sped beat of her own heart.

The shuttles engines softened, and before they'd quite settled, she was at the hatch and keying it open. The wind hit her first, scouring and dry and thick with grit. She vaulted onto the ground, aware of Liara and Vega behind her, matching her pace.

Closest to the transport landing area, the operations base was a cluster of open-air bunkers, flanked by toweringly high guard posts, raised gateways between them. Shepard passed a makeshift medbay, and a scout group kneeling over maps, and another pair of soldiers, working their way through ammunition lists. She called out to one of them, and nodded brisk thanks when they answered that they'd find the general at the north end of the complex.

The ground sloped up underfoot, gravel sliding under her boots when she pushed on faster. She cleared the crest, and when she gauged the distance to the last bunker, she stopped.

_He was halfway down the ramp and she was _looking_ at him and he was marching as impatiently fast as she had been. _

"Garrus," she said, his name locking up in her throat.

"I'm here," he said, and she wondered if her voice was as rough as his.

He moved first, and she met him halfway, her hands finding his and clinging hard. She half fumbled it, latching her fingers around his until it almost hurt.

"Yeah," she said. She swallowed against the thickness in her throat. She was staring up at him, at how the livid spread of his scars had softened a little more, at how he was still looking at her.

_Looking at her as if they were alone, yearning and desperate. _

"Hey," Shepard said softly. "You okay?"

"I'm okay." His blue eyes glittered, wry and knowing. "Location could be better."

"I hear that."

"We've got problems."

"We always do."

His teeth flashed in a smile. "Well, when you put it like that."

She wanted to ask about Palaven. She wanted ask how he'd gotten himself here, how it was that he looked so damn tired, how it was that he was _here_. Instead, she said, "Good to see you."

"Yeah," he said, sighing the word out. His hands tightened on hers. "You too."

"I wondered," she said. Her voice faltered. "I mean, I didn't know where you were. If you were, you know."

"I know." He stepped closer, so that their locked hands bumped against his chest. His head dipped, and suddenly he was close enough that she could smell him, dust and weapon oil and _Garrus_.

"You know something?" Shepard asked. "I thought I'd have to tear the place apart looking for you."

Garrus laughed, and the sound of it eased the knotted tension in her. "Saved you the trouble."

"Yeah," she said, and her own laughter joined his, uneven and gasped-out. Almost without thinking, she hauled him closer. His forehead brushed hers, and she held him like that, close enough that she could feel the rhythm of his breathing against her mouth. "Oh, God. Garrus."

"I know," he said again, and she heard the hitch in his words. "Shepard."

"You know," she murmured, and did not move. "There's probably some stuff we should talk about doing."

"_Here?_"

She spluttered into another laugh. "Actually I meant that part where we have to go talk to your general."

"Oh, that part," Garrus retorted. "Yeah. We can do that."

"So," she said. She tilted her head until her cheek grazed his, angled and sharp and all unforgiving lines. "You coming with me?"

"Shepard," he said. He leaned into her, his weight reassuring and welcome and _known_. "Now that you're here? You're not going anywhere without me."


	37. Belonging

_As always, such a big thank-you to everyone who's following this story - your support means so much. Bioware owns nearly everything.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty-Seven – Belonging**_

Shepard loosened her grip on her rifle and breathed in slowly, the air dragging across her tongue, dry and too warm. She leaned back against the rough lines of the rock and almost managed to hide her smile when Garrus did the same, the side of his arm brushing hers.

Forty minutes over uneven terrain – _sometimes running, sometimes pushing through onrushing groups of husks – _had taken them through the jagged valleys and into the vicious chaos of another surface base, thronged with Reaper ground troops and the sky above split with gunfire. They'd found the Primarch – _the new Primarch, _Shepard thought, and wondered how much else she'd missed – and beneath the awful weight of necessity, he'd given in and agreed.

"Hey," Shepard said, and nudged Garrus gently. "You said you know him?"

"Victus? Yeah. Not very well, but yeah. If he's agreed, he's agreed."

"Good."

"It'll be tough," Garrus said thoughtfully. "Dragging him away from this."

"Yeah," Shepard said, and she understood. The frenetic, day-by-day motions of combat were easier to track, in numbers and ground gained and ground lost and in the sped beat of your heart every morning. _Easier to count the enemies when they toppled underneath the barrel of your own gun. _"I get it."

"You reckon this summit will work?"

"I have no idea," she answered immediately. When she felt him laugh, she added, "I'm thinking I'll be locking a bunch of government leaders in a room on the _Normandy_ together and then wiping the blood off the walls afterwards."

"Ouch," Garrus remarked mildly.

She shifted slightly, too aware of him, of the teasing glide of his hand over the back of hers. _Too aware of how they were waiting, waiting for Primarch Victus to gather his gear and farewell his men and give them the go-ahead to march_ _back to the airfield. _"So," she said. "Tell me about your Reaper taskforce."

"I'm advising," he said drily.

Shepard grinned. "Advising."

"Yeah. When a Reaper comes plummeting down, I tell people to run the other way."

She snorted. "Very funny."

"It was something we got Fedorian to do," Garrus said, his voice roughening slightly. "He gave me handful of operatives to shut me up."

"What did you do with them?"

"As much as I could get away with." His mouth parted in a grin that vanished too soon. "Supply lines, early warning protocols. Fleet reports. I like to think it helped. I, ah. You won't believe this. It all got started because I went to talk to my father."

"Your father," she echoed.

"Long story."

"You'll tell me about it?"

"Of course I will." He turned slightly, his shoulder curving against hers. "Will you tell me about Earth?"

"It's not that exciting. I spent most of it staring at the wall. I suspect your time was spent much more productively."

Garrus' blue eyes glittered. "Perhaps."

"Of course I'll tell you," she said, quietly. "I, yeah. I'll do that. Yeah."

"You know, that actually made sense," Garrus responded, and dodged the idle swipe she aimed at his arm.

"Commander?" Footsteps, and then Vega ducked between the high slopes of two boulders, his rifle loose in his hands.

"What's up, Vega?"

"The Primarch says he's ready to go."

"Okay." Shepard shoved upright and away from the rocks. "Let's try to get ourselves there quickly and quietly and without introducing ourselves to too many Reapers."

* * *

><p>Garrus crossed the last stretch of ground, stepped around a pair of hurrying soldiers, and strode up into the communications bunker. Corinthus turned before he could speak, and asked, "You all make it back?"<p>

"Yeah," Garrus answered. For a wavering moment, he wondered at the knot of strange trepidation that had lodged itself inside his chest. "Shepard's getting Victus onto the shuttle."

"Okay." Corinthus' head tilted. "You think this is going to work?"

"I don't know. I think it's about all we have to work with right now."

"Yes," Corinthus said heavily. "Of course."

"General," Garrus said. "I'd like to request a transfer. To the _Normandy_."

Corinthus' gaze sharpened, raking over him. "Request."

"Actually, no," Garrus amended. "Not really."

"You're volunteering to coordinate with the Primarch, are you?"

Garrus bit back the sudden urge to smile. "Yes, sir."

"And you'll keep Menae Command fully updated with your progress of however this summit goes?"

"Yes, sir."

Something in the hard angles of Corinthus' face softened. "Then go and be useful."

"Thank you, sir." He hesitated before adding, "I really thought I'd have to fight for it."

"It was tempting. You can leave me your operatives and I'll give them plenty to keep themselves occupied."

"I'm sure they'll appreciate that." He reached out and clasped Corinthus' hand. "Take care."

Corinthus barked out a laugh. "Around here?"

"Then the next time a Reaper tries to walk all over the camp, remember to run and hide."

"Good advice for anyone. Look after yourself, Vakarian."

"You too, sir."

Brisk minutes later, he was at the airfield, loose gravel crunching under his boots. He looked up in time to see Shepard swinging herself out of the shuttle door, and as he had so often today – _when they'd trekked through broken valleys, when she'd come marching into the camp_ – he found himself looking at her. Looking at the shadows under her eyes and the strain in the set of her shoulders and the way she had one hand clamped against the side of the shuttle.

_Looking at her as if he might be able to see whatever had happened on Earth in her. _

"Hey," she said. "You okay?"

"Feels weird," he admitted. "First day I got up here, I wanted to be anywhere else."

"Yeah," she said, very gently. "I get that. You need more time?"

"No. No, it's okay. I've talked to a few people and I even cleared out my gear locker."

"Dutiful," Shepard said teasingly.

"You know it."

He followed her up and into the shuttle and half-listened to the low murmur of conversation, Liara responding to something Vega said about rough terrain and numbers, the pilot affirming take-off. The engines surged into life, and he felt the familiar lift and sway as the shuttle rose. Shepard sat beside him, her thigh brushing his when she shifted slightly. She stayed wordless while the shuttle curved out and into the mute blackness of space.

"Closing on the _Normandy_, Commander."

"Thanks, Cortez. How's it looking out there?"

"Just about the way it did on our way in," the pilot answered, his voice rough.

"Yeah," Shepard said, and Garrus wondered if he'd sounded the same on Menae, shaping words to fill aching silences because there was no other choice.

The shuttle slewed sideways, settling lightly on the hangar deck. The slow thunk of the ramp closing behind them followed.

"Liara," Shepard said genially. "Could you take Primarch Victus up to the CIC? Give him as much of a look around as he wants, and I'll be up in five minutes."

Liara smiled. "Of course."

Shepard heaved the shuttle door open and vaulted down onto the floor. Garrus trailed her, noting the wide, clean space of the armoury and the ranks of gleaming workbenches.

"Been tidied up a bit," he remarked drily.

"Just a little," she replied. She waited until the others were out of the shuttle and halfway across to the door. "I guess duty calls."

"It usually does," Garrus said, and saw her expression soften. "It's okay."

"You want to meet me in my quarters?" She swallowed, and added, "I mean, if you want to."

"I want to," he said. "Twenty minutes?"

"Twenty minutes," she echoed. She reached for him then, her fingers twining around his. "Besides, you're distracting me."

Garrus laughed. "I'm distracting _you?_"

She tugged him closer and he responded, hauling her against his chest, ignoring the encasing press of her armour. Her hands clawed up to his shoulders, desperate and clutching hard. "Yeah," she said, her voice half-muffled against him. "You really are."

* * *

><p>Fifteen minutes later, Garrus stood poised on the loft deck, his mind an unhelpful whirl. He'd seen Joker, and checked in with Liara, and now he was too aware of the acrid stink of Menae, clinging to his armour and his rifle and the inside of his mouth.<p>

The elevator swished open, and Shepard said mildly, "You're still here."

"I considered raiding the mess hall, but then I remembered what the food's like."

Shepard laughed, a little unevenly. She slipped past him, keying the door open with one hand. "You okay?"

He nodded, and stepped across the threshold and into the flooding white light of her quarters. The silence stretched between them, and when he searched for the right words, he failed.

_So many days_, he thought. So many days and he hoped – _desperately, painfully, he hoped_ – that she was still herself.

The door clicked shut, and he was aware of her still moving, her hands flitting to her weapon harness, heaving it off and onto its rack. He did the same – _anything, movement and motion and stalling because he didn't know what else to do_ – until he'd shrugged his armour off and so had she and _hell_ she looked worn, stripped down to her fatigues.

"Shepard," he said, her name catching on his tongue.

"You want to sit down?"

"Yeah."

He let her move first, gesturing him to the couch. He sat beside her, and she shifted closer, her dark eyes fixed on him.

"Hey," Garrus said, and scooped her hands between both of his. "Can I touch you?"

He'd never seen her like this, he was sure. He'd never seen her so _still_.

"Yeah," she answered, and a smile lightened her face. "Sorry. It's been a tough few days."

"Yeah." He touched her hair first, running his fingers through the thick dark strands. He worked his way down to the column of her throat, and the delicate bones of her face, and down again to where he could feel her heartbeat thundering. "You okay?"

"I don't know," she said. "I don't…I'll be okay."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, and turned her face into his palm. "You're here."

Her words hit him like a punch to the gut and he swallowed. "I wondered. I mean, I didn't know, if. You know."

"Garrus Vakarian," she said. "You are an idiot."

"Hey," he protested mildly. "I've had a lot going on lately."

She reached up and caught his collar and dragged his head down. "I missed you," she told him firmly. "So much."

"Yeah," he said, the word rushing out against the side of her face. "I missed you. I thought I'd never, well. I'm not making much sense."

"I don't know," Shepard said, her voice softening. She pressed her mouth against his chin, against the angles of his face above, across his markings. "I think I understood that."

He laughed, and when he folded his arms around her, she sank against him. She pushed until he was on his back and she was stretched across him and his breathing was coming ragged into her hair. "Shepard," he managed. He ran his hands down the slope of her back. "Okay?"

"Okay," she said. "Garrus?"

"_Yes_," he said, fiercely.

She moved, her hands smoothing across his chest, her weight settling over his hips. Her fingers were fitful at his shoulder, at the side of his face, tracing the lines of his mouth.

"Hey," Garrus said, very gently. "I'm not going anywhere."

She laughed, and he felt it as the locked tension in her seeped away. "Sorry," she said. She grinned, and added, "I think I'm trying to do everything at once."

He cupped the back of her thighs and squeezed. "Yeah," he said. "But generally it's easier if you start by getting rid of your clothes."

"You first," she retorted.

He had time to laugh before she reached for him again, finding cloth and tugging. She yanked his tunic off over his head and swore when it snagged against the back of his fringe. He wrestled free of it, and his thoughts scattered wildly when he felt the searching movement of her fingers, thin and strong and skimming down to the softer skin just above his hips.

She explored him, slowly and tenderly, as if she'd never had her hands on him before. Her touch dipped below his waist and he arched in blind, frantic response. He was aware of her fumbling with buckles and the clasps beneath, and then the aching relief when her fingers circled him, finally and desperately.

"Shepard," he said, and the roughness in his own voice blurred her name. "That's…"

"Unfair?"

"Entirely," he answered.

He levered upright and shakily he pulled her fatigues off, shirt and vest and the faded underwear beneath. Her belt thwarted him until she helped, her fingers wreathing over his. He traced the contours of her, mapping the wiry shift of the muscles beneath her skin, until he found new scars. Almost tremulously, he touched one of them, and the spread of bruises above.

"Hey," Shepard said, and he felt the damp pressure of her lips at the corner of his mouth. "It's okay."

"I know."

He brushed the sharp line of her collarbone, and lower, until her breathing hitched. She sighed out his name, and when he slid one hand up the inside of her thigh, he heard her laugh, half-strangled.

"You're teasing," she said.

"Revenge," he told her mildly.

"Yeah?" She shook, her whole body curving beneath him. "That's what you're calling it?"

"Yeah," he managed. "Something like that."

He stroked, opening her, his fingers gliding against the yielding wetness between her thighs. Her hips rocked, matching the insistent motion of his hand. Too fast – _too fast and it was wonderful and shuddering all at once_ – she bucked up against him, her hand over the back of his, her fingers vising around his wrist. Wordlessly, she coaxed him above her. They fumbled through a clumsy, breathless moment while she curled her legs around him, while he reached between them. Gently, he eased into her, and the wrenching pleasure of it stole breath and thought. He was aware of her hands on his waist, sliding and gripping, and sliding again.

"I really," he said unevenly. "Don't think I'm going to last."

She gasped out a laugh and locked her legs behind the back of his. "It's okay," she said. "Garrus. It's okay."

He nodded, and his head dropped against her shoulder, and heartbeats later, he lost himself.

"Hey," she said. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he mumbled. He licked the side of her neck and tasted salt and heat and _her_. He felt the hurried thud of her pulse and asked, "Is this uncomfortable?"

"You know," Shepard said. "I think I can handle you on top of me right now. I may not even let you move."

He laughed. "I'll live."

"You'd better." She traced his chin, and the lines of his mouth. "Can I tell you something?"

"Anything."

"I was terrified I wouldn't find you."

"Yeah," he said, the word heavy on his tongue. "I get it. I kept thinking I'd be stuck there. I kept thinking I didn't know what had happened to you and that there was no way I'd be learning anything fast. You know the weird part, though?"

"There's only one weird part?"

Garrus laughed. He skimmed one hand over the curve of her shoulder and answered, "Sometimes it is worse, not knowing. You can chase yourself in insane circles thinking the very worst, but when you're not doing that, you can hope."

"Yeah," she said, softly. "You can."

He shifted to one side slightly, so that he could look into her face. "It happened so fast."

"Yeah. Yeah, it did. Even though we knew it was going to." Shepard sucked in a slow breath and added, "When I saw them coming out of the clouds, I just…I don't know."

"The one time you really don't want to be right?"

"Hah. Yes."

For long, lazy moments, he lay beside her, aware of little but the bare warmth of her skin and the way she was looking at him.

_Her eyes on him as if she didn't want to look away, her face all delightfully flushed. _

"I hated leaving you there," Garrus blurted, almost without thinking about it. "On Earth."

She found his hand, wreathed her fingers through his. "I know. But, you know, you'd've really not liked it on Earth."

"Before or after the Reapers?" he asked, deadpan.

She laughed, unfettered and spluttering. "Oh, very funny, Vakarian."

He gathered her against him. "Forgive me?"

"I think I can manage that."

"I'm flattered."

"You should be." She leaned her forehead against his, close enough that he could smell her, could smell them both on her skin. "You know what we should do next?"

"More sex?" He coughed and added, "Well. Longer sex."

"Shower first." She grinned and rolled out from under his arm.

He heard the soft sounds of her feet hitting the floor before she hauled him upright. He swayed, and she steadied him, her arms sliding around his waist and holding him there.

"I missed you," she said, her mouth moving against his shoulder. "I'm still not quite believing that I ran into you this morning."

"I'm sure I can think of a few more ways to prove it to you."

She laughed, and disentangled herself from him long enough to lead him across the cool white floor and into the small bathroom. The bright flood of the lights fell across her shoulders and her scars, and after she'd flicked the water on, he asked, "How'd you get them?"

"That one?" She turned and added, "I took a running jump that turned into a running fall. There wasn't much time to grab armour."

"What happened?"

"Vega came to cart me in front of the defense committee." She stepped under the spray, and he followed her, tipping his face up against the welcome heat of it. "The meeting got about three minutes in before a rather large and rather angry Reaper landed over the river and blew the building up."

Garrus bit back a laugh. "Only you could make that sound so uneventful."

"It was terrible," she said, quieter. "The worst part was not being able to _do_ anything. I mean, I got Anderson out and we ran like hell. I know we shot a fair few of the bastards on the way, but they just kept coming and coming."

"Yeah." He watched the fall of the water, travelling in gleaming lines across her shoulders. "We got the Primarch into a shuttle and onto to Menae, and it felt like running away."

"You did what you had to." Lopsidedly, she smiled. "And sometimes, when there's a Reaper glaring at you, running away's about the only sensible option."

"Yeah, I know."

"Doesn't mean you can't be pissed off about it, though." She reached for the soap and pressed it into his hands.

"Do Reapers glare?" He started with her hands, rubbing soap over bruises and the small creases between her fingers. "Actively, I mean."

Shepard laughed. "We can ask the next one we blow up. Well, before we blow it up."

"Sounds like a plan."

He turned his attention to her hair, dark and wet and dragging against his palms. She sighed, her eyes sliding closed. He took his time, deliberately and tenderly, working shampoo through the short strands. Afterwards, she did the same, scrubbing the grime and the grit and the ash off him, lingering over the inside of his wrists and the angles of his face. Together they stumbled out of the steam and she toppled them both onto the bed, still dripping.

She rolled into his arms, all slick skin and warmth, cleaving against him from hip to shoulder. "You going to be offended if I fall asleep?"

He laughed. "Not at all."

"Mmm," she said, and the sound was swallowed by a yawn. "Good. Haven't slept well since Earth. Well, since before Earth."

"No," Garrus agreed. He found the nape of her neck and stroked, pushing his fingers into the damp ends of her hair. "Me neither."

"Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't go anywhere."

* * *

><p>Shepard surfaced from the strange blur of her dreams and slowly she became aware that she was tangled around Garrus. She had one leg trapped between both of his, and somehow she'd managed to fold herself against the side of his chest.<p>

She shifted, and felt it as he stirred. "Hey," she murmured.

"Hey," Garrus mumbled.

"Did you sleep at all?"

"Yeah," he answered. "I think so."

"You know," she said, and distracted herself by tracing between the solid plates of his chest. "There were a few moments when I really thought I'd never see you again."

"I'm hard to kill. You know that."

She laughed. "Yeah. It almost wasn't – well, it was that – but it was also that I didn't know where you were. You could've been alive and fine and I still could've missed walking into you."

"Yeah," he said, and his arms tightened around her. "I thought of you. Every night. Well, most nights. Some nights I was just too damn tired from fighting Reapers."

"You're so romantic."

"You know it."

"How did it go with your father?"

Garrus laughed, his angular frame shaking against her. "I, ah. I think I learned that he's about as stubborn as I am. Or I remembered it."

"And you didn't kill each other?" she asked, teasingly.

"It was strange. I thought it was going to be so, I don't know. Difficult. And it was, but…some of it wasn't."

"How do you mean?"

"He listened," Garrus said. "He listened to me while we put the pieces of it together. All the way from me running into you on the Citadel, all that bullshit with Saren and C-Sec. All the way from the beginning."

"He believed you?"

"He did," Garrus admitted. "And hearing it all strung together at the same time – I don't know, Shepard. Hell of a story."

"Yeah." She grinned and idly, she trailed one hand along the jut of his hip. "When you put it together, it gets crazy quickly."

"He got me into see the Primarch, and then we spent far too long talking about things before actually getting anything done." He shrugged and added, "Got there in the end. I don't know if it really made any difference. I'd like to think it did."

"If you got even a few people clear in time, then it worked."

"Yeah." He exhaled sharply. "I guess. It's just tough to think of it like that when I know what Palaven looks like right now."

"Yes," she said. She found his hand and locked her fingers through his. "I know what you mean. Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"What about the other stuff? You know, not the paperwork."

"Oh." He hesitated before he said, "You know how weird it is to have your dad making you dinner when it's the first damn time you've been inside his apartment in years?"

Almost unbidden, she found herself smiling slightly. "I can imagine."

"We talked," Garrus said. "We talked about Omega. He looked so old."

"Garrus."

"No, it's okay. It was just," he said, and paused, as if he was hunting for the right words. "He was so damn stubborn, and so was I, but he listened. He's still on Palaven."

Shepard swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat. "When did you last talk?"

"A few days ago. Apparently he's forgotten that he's retired. We ordered a general evacuation, but," he said, and she heard the clipped sound of his teeth clicking shut.

Uselessly, she said, "I'm sorry."

"You hear from your mom?"

"Through Hackett," Shepard said. "She's serving with the fleet."

"Good." Garrus lifted her hand between both of his, clutching hard. "I, ah. Ran into my sister. Well, I said something about her, and Dad bullied her into spending some of her leave with us. Her ship's somewhere between Menae and Palaven."

"She okay?"

"She was, the last time we talked."

She heard the exhausted emptiness in his voice and ached. Sometimes, she thought, words were pointless, platitudes shaped in air. Silently, she lifted his hands to her mouth and kissed his fingers in turn.

"You know," Garrus said roughly. "You still haven't told me much about Earth."

"Yeah." She wavered for a terrible, wondering instant, before she told him about the cell and the window and the rec room. The grinding slow drip of the days and how she'd thought of him and woken to empty sheets. How she'd paced every inch of the cell until the day the Reapers had come plummeting out of the clouds.

_How the _Normandy_ had come sweeping round, the landing ramp dropping dangerously fast, while the river was whipped white under the ponderous bulk of another Reaper. _

"Sorry," Garrus said, halfway to startled laughter. "Joker bullshitted them?"

"The whole retrofit team," Shepard said.

"I'm impressed."

"So was I." She grinned and added, "That and EDI apparently does a damn good impression of a VI."

"What about the crew?"

"They didn't ask for any of it," Shepard confessed heavily. "We were pretty empty until we got ourselves resupplied at the Citadel, and then everything went to shit on Mars."

He said nothing, only drew her against his shoulder. His fingers feathered through her hair, plying the strands apart.

"Cerberus," she said, and she told him how they'd woven their way through the base while the storm surged up outside. How they'd run into Liara, how the red dust had come screaming over the base and how they'd been too slow, how the Cerberus machine had come clambering out of the smoking wreckage. "It's generally not much fun to fuck up that badly so early on."

"You didn't fuck it up. Sometimes things get away from you."

"Yeah, I know."

"Alenko's okay?"

"Stabilised at the Citadel."

"These Prothean blueprints," Garrus said slowly. "You reckon they'll actually come to anything?"

"I don't know. I want them to. Liara sees something in them. I want them to mean something. I just," she said, and tipped her head against his shoulder. "I don't want to throw everything we have at something that's so unknown."

"So the plan is to keep kicking the crap out of Reapers until we know more?"

Shepard laughed. "Succinct. And, yeah."

"And until then you get to wrestle with politicians."

"Thanks," she said wryly. "What makes you think you get a pass?"

"Shepard, I was hoping for a vacation."

"No rest for the wicked. Don't you know that by now?"

"Very funny." He moved, rolling onto his back and lifting her above him in the same motion. She settled onto him, her legs opening over his hips. "Of course I'll be there."

She crossed her hands over his chest and leaned on them. "What about Menae?"

"You saw it."

"Yeah."

"They took a hell of a pounding from the very first day. It was," he said, and stopped, his blue eyes flickering. "Technically, our command base was holding. I'm not sure it felt like that, though. I remember, we tried tracking the attacks."

His voice was burred rough, with exhaustion or the memories or both, his words jolting, and painfully, she understood.

"I think all we read in their movements was that they'd throw everything at us, wait a few hours, and then do it again." Beneath her, he sighed, and she felt the shuddering motion of it. "I don't know, Shepard. I just keep thinking that if that's how it starts, then…"

"Then how long can we keep it going."

"Yeah."

"For as long as we have to," she said fiercely.

"Yeah, I know." His hands slipped up the arch of her back. "And I know we knew it would happen like this."

"Hell of a difference actually _seeing_ it."

"Yeah. It is. Sorry."

"For what?"

"I feel like I don't know what I'm saying. Got too much that I want to say."

"That's what I'm here for," she said gently. "Listening, wasting time in the shower and pinning you to the bed."

Garrus laughed, his whole frame shaking under her. "Is that a challenge?"

"It could be," she told him archly, and grinned when he moved, tipping her off him and onto her back.

She felt the searching pressure of him, of his face – _all hard angles and slightly too sharp in places and _god _she'd missed this - _grazing gently over the flat of her belly and down, until he flicked his tongue over the swell of her hip.

"Garrus," she said, breathing out the shape of his name. She wanted him closer to her, closer and inside her, so that she could abandon thought and do little else but _feel_. "Faster?"

Gently – _delicately and merciless and she damn well knew it was deliberate_ – his fingers played between her thighs, circling. He lingered a moment longer, tortuously, before he moved, his hands settling against the back of her knees. His first, deep thrust had them both shuddering. She surged up to meet his rhythm, her hands catching at the back of his neck, urgent and unsteady. Afterwards, he rolled onto his side, gathering her against his chest.

"This okay?"

"Garrus, you're not going to be _allowed_ to move." She traced the blue lines of his markings and the blur where they gave way to his scars. "Are _you_ okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. This is, I mean, you're," he said, and nuzzled the side of her face. "Wonderful."

"I missed this," she said. "Just…this."

"I know what you mean."

For long, indolent minutes, she stayed tangled around him, her fingers wandering beneath his fringe, down the back of his neck to the wiry span of his shoulders.

"Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"How's Hackett been managing coordination from his end?"

"You're breaking the mood."

"Noted," he said drily.

"My guess? He doesn't sleep much." She smiled crookedly and added, "The policy we're operating under right now is called something rather similar to _tell everyone everything just in case it's important_. I've got EDI and Traynor flagging a lot of incoming data. It's not all useful."

"But some is," he conceded. "Traynor? The kid in the CIC?"

"Yeah, she was hauled out of a lab somewhere. She's doing alright," Shepard said. "Those first few days were tough, but she's doing alright."

"Only the first few days?"

"Nice to see your sense of humour is intact." She flicked his shoulder idly. "Hackett wants us to send anything his way that could be useful for the blueprints. A lot of it's fumbling around in the dark, but I don't see any other way to approach it."

"Yeah. Trying to do four things at once, and none of them easy."

"Only four?"

Garrus laughed, softly. He cupped one side of her face, his thumb rubbing over her cheekbone. "For now."

"Garrus," she said, and hesitated.

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask about numbers?"

He stilled, and she felt the sudden, awful tension in him. "Three million lost the first day," he said, the words clipped and measured. "Five the second."

"Garrus."

"It's okay."

"No, it isn't."

"No," he said unevenly. He brushed his forehead against hers, so that she was breathing against his mouth, breathing him in. "I guess it isn't."

* * *

><p>Shepard woke to rumpled sheets and Garrus, half-sprawled across her, and the unfamiliar awareness that one of her legs was almost numb. Carefully, she eased out from under him, and laughed when he sighed something inaudible and dragged her back against his shoulder anyway.<p>

"Hey," she murmured, twisting around in his arms. "You alive?"

"Mmm," he mumbled, and his eyes opened, narrow and glazed. "Yeah. What time is it?"

"About to hit the daytime cycle."

"Plan?"

"Check in with your Primarch." She kissed the slant of his jaw. "And give you the rest of the tour that you skipped yesterday."

"Like that was my fault."

"We can share the blame."

"Magnanimous, Shepard."

"Always. And then once I've talked to the Council, we can go be their errand boys and try and get this summit going."

Garrus chuckled. "Yeah. That's going to be about as tough as wrangling with a Reaper, you know."

"With less laserfire and more talking, I'm hoping." She traced her way down his chest, her gaze on the tremulous movement of her own fingers. "So, I was thinking. You've got no assigned quarters. I was wondering if we might keep it that way."

"You mean," he said.

"Yeah," she answered. "If you want to."

"I want to," he blurted out. "I mean, yeah."

Shepard laughed. "I just figure that the galaxy's going to hell too damn fast. Might as well go do the crazy things you never thought you'd do."

"I'm touched."

"You should be." She lifted one of his hands and pressed the rough pads of his fingers against her lips. "Actually I'm just really glad you said yes."

"You thought I wouldn't want to?"

"I don't know what I thought," she admitted. "So I thought I'd just come right out and ask."

"Being together as much as we can?" Garrus said, and she heard his voice roughen. "That's not something I'm going to say no to."

"Wait til I start hogging the sheets."

"Shepard, I already know you do that."

"I also leave wet towels on the floor."

"You're not making a great case for yourself here," he said drily.

She felt the gentle pressure of his hand under her chin, and then he was urging her head up so that she was looking at him.

"Hey," Garrus said, very softly. "If I didn't know you were you, I'd almost say you look scared."

"Not scared. Nervous." She smiled. "Stupid. We're probably going to get eaten by Reapers tomorrow and here I am, worried that you'd say no."

"Shepard," he said, mildly admonishing. "You know me better than that."

"Well, yeah. Doesn't mean I can't _worry_ about it though."

"I know. I get that. I just, well. You're stuck with me."

"Good."

He reached for her, and she turned into the circling warmth of his arms. She hauled herself halfway on top of him, his laughter joining hers when she bumped one knee against the inside of his. She had both hands on his hips and her mouth against the rough skin there when the comm station buzzed.

Shepard swore. She kicked the sheets away and, after she'd pointedly ignored Garrus' amused gaze, she flattened her hand on the comm button. "Yeah?"

"Commander?"

"This better be good, Joker. _Really_ good."

She heard him cough before he said, "Yeah, ah. EDI's offline."

"She's _what?_"

"Yeah," Joker said. "I don't know, Commander. I can't raise her. And I've got Traynor down here just tracking systems that keep dipping."

"When did it start?"

"Few minutes ago. Fifteen."

"Okay." She pushed a hand through her hair. "I'll be down as soon as I can."

"Okay. Thanks, Commander."

Shepard turned away, frowning. She found her fatigues on the floor, and Garrus', scattered near the end of the bed.

"Duty calls?" he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the mattress.

"Yeah, and a little earlier than I'd anticipated." She flung his tunic across to him. "Fancy a run down to the AI core?"

"Well." He head tipped, and he grinned, a brief flash of teeth. "Not like I had anything else planned right now."


	38. Negotiations

_Firstly an apology for such a long absence - life, end of semester trials and so on. Hopefully my update speed will be kicked back into gear now, every couple of weeks or so. I'm behind on replying to reviews as well, but I'd really like to thank everyone who's been keeping up with and is interested in where the story's going - thank you all so much for your wonderful support.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty-Eight – Negotiations**_

Shepard stared into the hazy darkness of the AI core and wondered if she'd finally gone mad. _The last time_, she thought, the last time she'd seen this thing – this machine, this mech, whatever it was – up and moving, it'd been soot-blackened and implacable, wiry metal feet slamming hard into the ground as it ran.

"You know, EDI," she said, slowly. "I really can't say this is what I really expected when I came in here."

"No?" EDI asked, mildly.

"Not really." For a long, speculative moment, Shepard stared at it – _her_, she amended silently – at the way she was standing, loose-limbed and patient and silver. Beside her, Garrus shifted, the side of his arm brushing hers. "I have to ask," she added. "You're _sure_ it's just you in there now?"

"Yes, Shepard."

"Okay." Helplessly, halfway to smiling, Shepard shrugged. _And it _was_ EDI, _she thought, and looked at her again, eyes piercing and direct and her voice the same, modulated and slightly wry. "Let's, ah. Let's make sure we get everyone up to speed on this, yes?"

EDI's head tilted. "Of course, Shepard. I will ensure the crew are updated."

"Good." She thought of the Cerberus machine – _the same and not quite the same_ – and how EDI'd said she'd had to pick apart its defenses, how she'd plied her way into it's systems, how she'd unraveled the data she'd found, buried somewhere deep within it.

_How EDI had it wrestled with it until it had given way, how she'd had to lock herself offline for troublingly long instants because that had been the only way. _

"Okay," Shepard said, and nodded. "Dismissed, EDI."

"Thank you, Commander." EDI's face softened into a slow smile. "I think I shall take this body to the bridge. I am curious to begin testing it, and Joker will also want to see it."

Shepard battled back the urge to smile. "Yeah. On that we can agree. EDI?"

She paused at the door, one elegant, slender hand against the keypad. "Yes, Shepard?"

"Let me know if you need anything."

"Of course, Shepard."

The door slid shut on EDI's heels, and Garrus said, "That was…?"

"Oh, yeah."

"The Cerberus machine."

"Yeah." She turned, looking up and into his face, all angles and his teeth half-bared in a slightly sly smile. "You're smirking."

"I'm not."

"You are." She tipped her head against his shoulder. "And yes, before you ask, that machine was a damn sight more unsettling the last time I saw it."

Garrus laughed. "I believe you. And you know something else?"

"What?"

"I've got to stop pretending that I can predict how the day's going to go."

"I hear that," she said, and leaned into the cradling pressure of his arm. "Come on. Let me show you the rest of the ship."

"Shepard, I know my way around the ship."

"Yeah, but it's much prettier now."

He stepped away from her, loitering long enough to push one hand through her hair. "That's what six months on the ground gets you, is it?"

"It is," she answered genially. She reached for the keypad. "That and a sparklingly tidy new armoury."

"Now that's the important part," Garrus said. He matched her steps out and into the corridor beyond. "That and the nearest drinks cabinet."

"I'll put in a requisition order, shall I?"

"You should. Where to first, or am I in your hands?"

Shepard fought back the sudden, absurd urge to laugh again. "Later," she told him archly. "Later. I promise."

* * *

><p>The livid glow of the holo-display hovered above Liara's desk, all slim lines and half-finished angles.<p>

"That's all of it?" Garrus asked.

"So far," Liara answered. She sat, folding her hands together. "It was buried in the archives on Mars."

"You think it'll get us anywhere?"

"I'm hoping," she said. "I know Cerberus cared enough about this thing to infiltrate the base."

Garrus stared at it, translucent and floating, and wondered how long it'd sat there, stacked underneath who knew how much other data, lists and artifacts and reports and all the jumbled echoes of the past that had been pulled up from beneath the red dust.

"So," he said, lighter. "What were you up to before Cerberus soldiers chased you through a dozen airvents?"

"Being chased by Cerberus elsewhere," she answered wryly. "And doing some chasing of my own."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. They're determined," Liara said, one side of her mouth sloping up. "And it was only two airvents."

"And here I thought tangling with Reapers would be enough to keep us busy."

"That would be far too easy."

Garrus barked out a laugh. "Wish I had your confidence right now."

"It's not confidence. It's blind desperation." Liara's expression shifted, her mouth thinning. "On Mars it was – well, it was as if we were waiting. Just waiting. I had plenty to do, plenty to catalogue, plenty to read. And under it all," she said, and the words trembled.

"Knowing," Garrus said.

"Yes."

"How did you find out?"

"Communications went down," Liara explained. "Or rather, we thought they'd gone patchy. The weather there is, well. Untrustworthy on the best of days. An hour later, no one was answering. Not the outpost, and not the Alliance ship that was meant to be on its way in to change over the guard roster." Her gaze lifted, glassy and tired. "It's strange. We spent years knowing this would happen, and now that it has, I still feel as if we're still waiting."

"You know the Council," Garrus said drily. "It'd take another Reaper right in the middle of the damn Presidium to get them moving."

"That isn't very reassuring."

"Yeah, but it's the only option we have right now. The Council, I mean, and playing at politics, not a Reaper in the Presidium."

Liara's smile returned, startled and amused. "Of course."

"We sort this alliance out, they'll have to start listening."

"Yes, and I'm hoping it will be sooner rather than later." Liara reached for the keyboard beneath the display, and the vivid lines of it blinked out. "I'm sorry. I'd wanted to catch up with you, not lecture you about how impatient I am."

Garrus laughed, gently. "It's okay. It would've been rough, Mars to a half-empty ship."

"Yes. And after the Council turned us away," she said, and shook her head. "We expected it, I think."

"It's still less than fun to hear."

"Yes. And the worst part was that I know exactly why they wouldn't – couldn't – commit to helping us."

"Yeah," Garrus said roughly. "Damn tempting, to shore up your own borders while somewhere else goes down in flames."

Bolstering supplies and stepping away and some awful part of him suspected – _knew, because it would've been the safer option, the only option_ - Palaven Command would've taken the same painfully efficient choice themselves. Co-operation, he thought, was a nasty, treacherous word even when Reapers _weren't_ trying to carve the galaxy apart.

"So," Garrus said, and forced his tone genial. "You still the scourge of information sellers everywhere?"

"I see myself more as an enthusiast." Softer, she added, "There's too much going on all at once for me to step away, even now. Especially now."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and unbidden, he thought of Menae, and the uneven rolling ground there, blackened and smoking and hot if you were stupid enough to touch the stone. Inches of it to be fought over and pushed back and lost and every day would be the same, always the same, the air dry and scraping and full of the stink of the dying and the clinging metal scent of the Reapers."I get it."

* * *

><p>The afternoon wore on, and Garrus spent most of it glaring at the console screens in the main battery, his fingers dancing against the glowing keyboard beneath. An hour and a set of stiff shoulders later, he'd bullied the power draw into a fraction of an increase, and briefly he'd wondered if he should chase EDI down and demand to know if <em>anyone<em> had touched the damn gun since the ship had left Earth. Afterwards, he took himself back up to Shepard's quarters – _their quarters, their cabin, and he'd heard the raw honesty in her voice when she'd asked _– and absurdly, he stopped long enough to lean against the rail.

He wrestled with himself a moment longer and called out, "Shepard? You in there?"

Seconds later, she replied, "In here and fully clothed."

"Shame. Want some company?"

The door swished open, and she looked up at him, her dark eyes finding his. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Two steps took him inside and he paused again. "Okay. You're going to laugh."

"I might," she allowed, and smiled. She slumped back onto the couch, drawing her legs up underneath her, a datapad balanced on one knee.

"It's weird. I know I spent a lot of time in here with you before, you know," he said, and swallowed. "And I, well. Thought that I should knock. And _yes_, I know how ridiculous that sounds."

"Only slightly ridiculous." Shepard's smile softened. "You can knock if you want to. I can even lock the door from the inside sometimes, if you want. Shake things up a bit."

"Now you _are_ making fun of me."

"A little."

"Nice." He sat beside her, and laughed when she burrowed under the arch of his arm before his shoulders had hit the back of the couch. "In a rush?"

"Hey," she protested, half muffled against his fatigues. "I only got you back a couple of days ago. I'm making up for a lot of lost slouching around time here."

"You talked to the Council?"

"Yeah. They didn't sound exactly brimming with hope."

"Understandable."

"Yeah," she said, rolling over so that she could look up at him, the back of her head against his thigh. Idly, she dropped the datapad onto the table. "They were kind enough to let me know that we can get back to them about more support if this works."

Garrus snorted. "Right. Do we even know what _this_ is, yet?"

"Something about pushing Primarch Victus towards a salarian dalatrass and a krogan clan chief and seeing who's standing at the end."

"I'm impressed." Almost absently, he mapped out the angles of her face, the lift of her chin, the small scar that dipped down beneath her jaw. "And also not envious."

"Yeah," she said, and leaned into his palm. "I feel like I'm throwing everything up in the air and hoping like hell it falls down into the right places."

"And once it all does, we can go shoot some Reapers."

She laughed. "You always know how to cheer me up."

"Of course I do." He found the soft, steady thud of her pulse, thrumming and warm under his fingers. "You're worried?"

"Uncertain. I want to get past all the talking. I've been sitting and talking for too many weeks already."

"When it's the only thing you can do, though, you keep talking."

"But now it isn't the only thing we can do, and there's this awful part of me that wonders how best to round up every single damn ship I can find and send them towards Earth." Briefly, her eyes closed, tight enough that he could see the fine blue tracery of veins beneath her skin. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"You know the worst part?" She frowned. "I mean, the worst part right now?"

Silently, he shook his head.

"I know it'll take time. We've got a hell of a lot to do."

"Hell of a lot of Reapers to blow up."

She smiled, lopsidedly. "Them as well."

"But?"

"But," she said, and clasped the back of his hand, small wiry human fingers sliding between his. "It'll take time. It'll take more time than I can guess at, and the longer it takes, the longer the Reapers are here."

"It was the numbers," Garrus said, the raw honesty of it rolling heavy off his tongue. "I'd look at the screen and try not to imagine what they meant. Who they meant."

The pressure of her fingers tightened. "We get this thing moving, and we can kick the Reapers out from every rock they're hiding under."

"Like there'll be anything left of Palaven by then." The words fell, hard and grated-out and heartbeats later, he regretted it. "Shit. I'm sorry."

"Hey." Shepard stirred, gracelessly clambering herself halfway to upright.

Instinctively, he steadied her, his hands catching at her hips. When he hauled her closer, close enough that she was on his lap, she didn't say anything, only pressed the side of her face against his, her fingers locking fiercely around the back of his neck in the same motion.

"It's stupid." He breathed in the scent of her, clean skin and the drag of her hair. "I walked off that damn planet years ago. Never wanted to go back. Never wanted to have to go back."

"Not stupid."

"No?"

"No. Of course, the next thing I'm going to say is that it's all different now, so please don't expect my advice to be anything less than blindingly obvious right now."

Despite himself, he laughed. "Great."

"It's still true," she said wryly. "I keep thinking I want to be out there. Doing something. Anything rather than sitting around waiting for politicians to agree on something. And then I think, well, what the hell are our chances? And then I think, fuck our chances, point me at the nearest Reaper."

"That's a lot of thinking."

"It made sense in my head, I promise."

"Made sense to me, as well," he said, and licked at the soft skin below her ear.

"That just makes you as mad as me."

"We knew that."

"Yeah," she said, and her voice roughened when he nuzzled just beneath her jaw. "I suppose we did."

She guided his hands to her belt, and then the hem of her shirt, and together they heaved her clothes off. His followed, kicked onto the floor as fast. Desperately, Shepard fumbled her way back on top of him, flattening her hands against his shoulders. He rocked himself into her, slowly, aware of her breath against his mouth, the feverish way her fingers were sliding under his fringe.

_Aware of how her hair gave under the trembling press of his hand, aware of the slight dappling of sweat at her temples, aware of the steely lines of the muscles in her shoulders. _

Tiny details, some uneven part of his mind reckoned, tiny details he'd missed, or half-forgotten, or for so many weeks not allowed himself to think of.

He folded his arms around her, and when she twisted, tipping them both sideways, he saw her smile, unguarded and flushed. She braced her hands against his chest, and when he thrust up into her, she matched his rhythm until she cried out. She toppled over the brink first – _frantic and her whole body curving and her thighs shaking against him and his fingers_ – and he followed, losing himself.

"So," Garrus said eventually, and swept his hands up and down the arch of her back. "What terrible round of paperwork did I interrupt?"

"You were a most welcome interruption."

"A willing one, as well."

She laughed. "Just a quick write-up for Hackett. The Council's thoughts, and a few bits and pieces Traynor sent up. You're welcome to check my spelling, if you want."

"Is that a perk of permanently sharing the commander's quarters?"

"Perk, punishment." Shepard grinned and traced her way down his chest, her fingers dipping between the ridged rise of his plates. "Take your pick."

* * *

><p><em>Ash, crunching under her feet. Ash, falling from the grey sky above. Ash, thick on the bare branches of thin grey trees. She stood, turning, hearing the low thrumming sound of the Reapers. They were close, closing, breaking the atmosphere somewhere above. She turned again, her boots scraping and sliding. She could feel the heat of them, somewhere above, somewhere close, too fucking close, and they'd be here too soon. <em>

_ She'd seen the ragged pieces of the Protheans and their cities as they fell, awash with flames, the grinding metallic sounds of it sawing through her dreams. _

_ She'd seen Menae. She'd seen Earth. _

_ She glared up at the lowering grey swirl of the clouds and waited. _

Shepard woke, jolting and half-aware of the dream as the shreds of it settled somewhere in her chest. She breathed in slowly, letting herself notice the crumpled sheets and the dark aquarium and the warm, reassuringly solid bulk of Garrus, sprawled beside her.

The sheets were tangled around his shoulders and under part of his fringe, and she allowed herself a small smile before she eased the fabric free. As carefully, she checked the time and swung her feet onto the floor. She padded across to the bathroom, and twenty minutes later, she'd showered and toweled her hair mostly dry. Scattering water droplets, she crossed the floor again and loitered by one of the lockers, tugging it open and scowling at the contents.

_Diplomacy_, she thought venomously, and pushed past the rows of pressed, hanging fatigues. Her fingers brushed glossy blue cloth, and she wondered why her stomach had knotted.

_Because they weren't hers. Because they'd been rushed on board as part of Anderson's gear collecting round-up, back when he'd thought it might be expedient rather than brutally necessary. Because hers had gone down in flames with the rest of the ship. _

She swore quietly and yanked the gleaming blue tunic out of the locker.

"Dress uniform?" Garrus asked, his voice all hazy with sleep. He sat up, the sheets pooling at his hips. "Making a statement?"

She took the time to look at him, his fingers splayed in the covers and his eyes soft. "Yeah," Shepard answered. "And that statement is, _hey, look, I can still fold my lapels properly even when planning how to chase after some Reapers_."

"Works for me."

"Works for you because it's not on me yet," she retorted mildly.

"Can I help it if I'm easily pleased?"

She draped the tunic over the edge of the locker door and rummaged for the other pieces, the pants and the slim belt and the mirror-bright dress boots she'd never once worn. By the time she straightened away from the locker, he'd crossed the space between them, the rough, rangy angles of his frame still bare.

"Well," Shepard said, and grinned. "Now who's distracting who?"

"Yeah, yeah. You've seen it all before."

As genially, he hooked up the tunic and shook it out, waiting while she tugged the rest of it on. She plucked at the knife-sharp creases, gave up, and let him shrug the tunic on over her shoulders. He eased the folds into place, his fingers finding the smooth round buttons before he turned his attention to the hem, banded with golden thread.

"You know," she said. "This is weird."

"Yeah. Usually I prefer getting you _out_ of your clothes."

She laughed. "Okay, I guess I'd better go see how long this can last before someone declares war."

Garrus tipped his head to one side, his eyes glittering wryly. "Aren't we already at war?"

"Before someone declares _another_ war, you smartass turian."

His teeth flashed in a grin. "Anything to keep it interesting."

"Thank you for your support." She clasped his head and pulled him closer, close enough that she could kiss the side of his face and the blue spread of his markings. "I'll find you later?"

"You'd better. Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"You'll be fine."

She smiled, and after she'd disentangled herself from him, she took herself down and into the mess hall, close to deserted. She nodded to Chakwas and Adams, both of them sitting over half-finished breakfast trays, both of them speaking in that hushed, deliberately quiet tone that the small end of the redeye hours seemed to demand.

She found a clean mug and coffee, and sipped at it on her way up to the cockpit. She found Joker and EDI seated – _EDI, all silver curves and darting fingers over the vivid glow of the console screens_ _and perhaps she wasn't _quite_ used to the idea yet_ – and let herself look at the sliding streams of stars.

"Morning, Commander." Joker half-swiveled the chair, tipping his head back far enough that she could see the shadows under his eyes. "You're up early."

"So are you."

"Yeah, well. Sleeping's overrated."

She lifted the mug again and said, "Not always."

"Early morning lecture, Commander, or did you come down here to gaze in wonder at my new co-pilot? Nearly everyone else has."

Shepard smiled. "Naturally."

"And _no_," Joker said. "I didn't know."

"Really?"

"You think if I knew that EDI was about to go and install herself in a sexy new robot body, do you think I could've kept quiet about it?"

She snorted out a laugh. "Of course not. EDI?"

"Yes, Shepard?"

"Everything going alright?"

"Yes, Shepard." EDI paused, her fingers stilling over the console. Her head turned, her gaze lifting and meeting Shepard's. "The diplomatic ships are within clear range, Shepard."

"Good."

"So," Joker said, and scrubbed at the back of his cap. "You think this is going to work?"

"You want my honest answer, or the answer I gave the Council?"

"The first one."

"Fuck knows."

Joker laughed. "Damn. Good to know I'm not the only skeptic around here."

Shepard tilted the mug, draining the cooling dregs. "We'll see how it goes. Okay. Hail the ships. Let them know they're welcome to send over shuttles and come aboard. And EDI, could you ask Primarch Victus to get himself prepared and be in the war room within the hour?"

"Of course, Shepard."

"There," Joker said, and tapped at his keyboard. He waited while the screen above flickered, fuzzy at the edges. "Look at them."

Shepard followed his gaze and saw them, the narrow grey and black lines of the two ships as they drifted, not quite circling each other, not quite within main weapons range, not ever tipping too far either way. "Joker."

"Commander?"

"Someone's going to come out of this discussion unhappy. Make sure our weapon systems are heated up. Just in case."

Briskly, he nodded. "Already done. Just in case."

Shepard smiled crookedly. Almost absently, she laid the empty mug beside Joker's chair. "Let's get this thing started, shall we?"

He shot a glare at the mug. "Really, Commander?"

"You can add it to your collection."

"I'm honoured."

* * *

><p>Twenty-five minutes later, she stood at the airlock, listening to the ratcheting whirr as one of the shuttles settled alongside. <em>Krogan first<em>, Joker had remarked, krogan and then the dalatrass and as soon as he'd mentioned that the krogan delegation had come straight from some pile of unappreciated rubble on Tuchanka - _same thing, surely, he'd added - _she had wondered.

It had been months, she knew, months upon months, while the _Normandy_ had plunged through the Omega-4 relay and while she'd stared at four grey walls from the inside of her cell, and she knew damn well that so many months was a long time for _anything_ to change.

The airlock door clanked open, and when Wrex's huge red-armoured frame filled it, Shepard found herself grinning.

"Shepard," Wrex said gruffly, and before she had time to reply, he'd grasped her arm and clapped her shoulder hard enough that she coughed. "Still alive, I see?"

"Any doubts?" she retorted.

"Your ship's still floating this time, so less doubts."

"Your faith in me and my survival overwhelms me."

"Good." Wrex peered down at her, his expression shrewdly thoughtful. "You got Reaper problems too?"

"You could say that." She shrugged, swallowed, and added, "Earth went up in flames. Palaven's no better. You?"

"Yeah," Wrex said, his shoulders sagging slightly. "We got them sniffing around on Tuchanka, too. Big bastards, dropping troops off. Scratching and scraping their way into our outposts."

"Full-scale invasion?"

"No," he said. "This is smaller. Like they're waiting for something. And I don't know about you, but that bothers me."

"Yeah," she said, understanding. "They come at you in droves, and you know what they want. Have to admit I don't really peg Reapers as the subtle kind."

Wrex laughed. "They're just warming up."

"And then?"

"Then they'll wish they hadn't."

"I've got to say, Wrex. I'm damn glad it's you here today."

"Course you are." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Palaven?"

"Yeah. Reapers are taking it apart piece by piece. We got Garrus off Menae a few days ago."

Wrex grinned, his teeth sharp in the gloom of the airlock. "He's still kicking?"

"That he is. We've got Liara with us too."

"You've been busy, Shepard."

"Not busy enough," she said, and it was half a protest and half a confession. "I don't know how this is going to go today, Wrex. I want us to work something out. You coming in with anything I should know about?"

"Yeah," Wrex said fiercely. "I've got a few ideas I want to throw around."

* * *

><p>Mid-morning saw Garrus tidying up in the main battery and after he'd gone over the data-feed from the main console, he meandered his way through the crew deck and down to the armoury. He spent long, idle moments inspecting the glossy ranks of spare weapons before the door swished open and Vega – <em>James Vega<em>, he remembered, _and he was a marine, and they'd been introduced on Menae, and walked past each other in the mess hall at least twice_ – strode in.

"Oh, hey. Vakarian." Vega nodded. "You looking for anything in particular?"

"No." As lazily, Garrus shrugged. "Just admiring."

"Admire away." Vega stepped past him, heading for one of the workbenches. He paused, gazing down for a long moment at the scattered bits and pieces of weapons, arrayed alongside oil and cleaning rods. "Heard the airlock going earlier. Guess that means the Commander's deciding the fate of the galaxy up there?"

Garrus laughed. "Yeah. We can hope that."

"Talking, though." Vega scooped up an assault rifle and briskly broke it apart. He reached for oil and a crumpled cloth and added, "That ever really work?"

"Sometimes you have to start with talking."

"Yeah, I know." Vega squinted down at the weapon's magazine port before he swiped at it with the cloth. "Need to get the krogan talking with us."

"Yeah. You point a krogan at anything, it'll fall over eventually."

Vega grinned. "Yeah, that'd be right. These fucking Reapers, though, man."

"They're something else," Garrus admitted. "I'll give them that."

"You were with the Commander, though, right? The attack on the Citadel?"

"Well, yeah. That was different."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Only one Reaper."

Vega laughed, snapped-out and gruff. He turned, bracing himself against the workbench. "Heard about what you all did there. And with the Collectors."

"Yeah, that was a weird one."

"The Cerberus part or the Collector part?"

"Both, I think." Garrus straightened up. A few steps took him almost to the shuttle and back, his gaze mapping out the clean, spare angles of the loading bay. "One of those missions where we were putting the pieces together at the same time as we were on the ground."

"That happens," Vega said mildly. "Usually we just call that unforeseen circumstances. Or the usual shit. Or both."

"Right." Garrus turned. He stopped by the pistol rack and paused, his gaze dropping to them where they were arranged, short stubby barrels tipped on their sides, all of them polished. "You mind?"

Vega's head lifted, his forehead furrowing slightly. "No, go ahead."

Garrus eased the weight of the pistol into his hand. As carefully, he let his fingers ghost over the trigger. He found another, thinner and lighter, the build deceptively delicate. "Very nice."

"It's a pretty collection. You were with C-Sec, right?"

"Originally." Garrus crossed back to the workbench, watching as Vega's hands flicked over the barrel of the rifle, broad and scarred and briskly competent.

"Like it?"

Garrus hesitated. "Some of it. Then you start drowning in all the red tape."

"Yeah. Less red tape every day lately, I'm noticing." Vega reached for one of the rougher patches, dragging it down the barrel in the same motion. "The Citadel was damn calm when we were there. Too calm."

"It's the centre of everything," Garrus said wryly. "At least, that's what they tell themselves."

"Great."

Vega scowled down at the rifle, at the stubborn scuff-marks. He turned his attention to the cleaning rod and the cloth, and when it slid clear – _thick with grit and oil and who the hell knew what else_ – Garrus swallowed. Grit and dust, he thought, because the Reapers brought flames with them, smoke and dust that always fouled up weapons the instant you stepped outside.

The elevator doors hissed open, and he heard brusque footsteps and then Shepard's voice. "Having fun?"

"Fun?" Vega grinned. "Commander, you've got it all wrong. This is where the real work's done."

"Sure it is."

Garrus waited until she'd marched across the floor, her hands plucking at the top two buttons on the tunic, yanking the collar a little wider. "How'd it go?"

The corners of her mouth shifted. "Let's just say your Primarch sounds pretty impressive when he's being all serious and political."

"I'm in suspense here," Garrus said drily.

"Well, to start with, Wrex wants a cure for the genophage."

"Afterwards?" Garrus blinked, his mind catching up with the rest of her words. "_Wrex_ is here?"

Shepard smiled. "Sorry. And yes, Wrex is here. And no, not afterwards, now."

"He's got some spectacular plan simmering away, has he?"

"You remember Maelon, the scientist?"

"I remember all those dead female krogan."

"Yeah," Shepard said, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Apparently there were some – a few, very few – who survived."

"And Wrex wants them." Garrus leaned against the workbench. "What's the catch?"

"The catch is they're on Sur'Kesh."

"And do the salarians on Sur'Kesh _know_ that they're about to be hosting a very determined krogan?"

Shepard's eyes glittered. "They're about to."

"Sounds like a plan. Anything else?"

"The dalatrass isn't happy."

"She'll get over it." Garrus straightened up, aware of it, the sudden exhilaration that had its hooks in him, the awareness that they'd be _doing_ something, taking something and running with it as far as they'd have to. "How do you want to work this?"

"It'll be tense," she said, more seriously. She settled her hip against the workbench beside him, her elbow brushing his. "Much as I admire Wrex's particular brand of _getting things done_, the whole damn galaxy's in enough trouble at the moment. I want this to go as smoothly as we can make it."

"You'll be playing Spectre?"

"Yeah." She grimaced, her shoulders shifting into a shrug. "Apparently it's a word that we're still pretending has weight. We'll call it a diplomatic exchange and go from there."

"Curing the genophage, though, Commander," Vega said. He folded his arms and added, "Not sure if I think that's a good idea or a really bad one."

"Part of me thinks the krogan have damn well earned their right to it, this many years later," she said, softer. "Then part of me thinks we'll be fighting_ them_ in a couple of generations."

"But?"

"But to fight them in a couple of generations we have to get them on side and kick the shit out of the Reapers first." She grinned crookedly. "We don't even know that this'll come to anything. We work with what we have, right now."

"Yeah, Commander. I get it."

"Okay. Then we'll get ourselves rested and ready, and then we'll see if what we do have right now can be made to last a while longer."

* * *

><p>Sur'Kesh was <em>green<em>, Shepard noticed first, green and lush and opulently bright beneath the blue dome of the sky. She saw the churning cascades of waterfalls and the delicate haze of mist above, blurring the air with spray. She braced herself beside Cortez's chair and for a long, admiring moment, she looked at the tangled canopy of the trees and the vivid bursts of crimson flowers, winding up and around the curves of branches and vines.

"ETA?"

"Six minutes, Commander."

"Good."

She turned, moving with the rolling cant of the shuttle until she was sitting beside Garrus again, half-listening as he responded to something Wrex said. Opposite, Vega interrupted, close to laughter.

_Words_, she thought, words and the power of them, and how Wrex had pushed and pushed and the dalatrass had sniped back, strong and strident even when Victus had thrown his voice into the argument, even when she'd talked about how she was still a fucking Spectre, even if the word sat heavy and odd on her tongue. _Get the cure and get the krogan to Palaven and get the turian military to Earth,_ and if she let it seethe around in her head too long, it was too many pieces circling too many other pieces.

_Steps_, she thought. Small steps and as painfully slowly as they needed to be taken, until they had enough to start lashing back.

"Hey," Garrus said, very quietly. His hand brushed her shoulder, and he added, "You okay in there?"

"Thinking."

"Didn't we already talk about that?"

Shepard smiled. "We did."

"Commander?"

"What's up, Cortez?"

"Hailing the ground, Commander, and they're telling me we shouldn't be here."

She shifted, easing the weight of her weapon harness. "Details?"

"As of right now, we don't have landing clearance."

"Okay," Shepard said resignedly. "Put me through to whoever's in charge down there."

"Stopping us landing?" Wrex swayed upright, the broad bulk of his shoulders filling the cramped angles of the shuttle's ceiling. "No. Not happening, Shepard. I've waited too damn long to get something like this sorted out."

He lunged for the keypad, and when the door whirred open, Shepard squinted against the stabbing glare of the sunlight. The shuttle tilted, and she saw the steep yellow roofs and walls of the base below, fringed with trees on both sides. "Wrex," she said, warningly.

He was through the door seconds later, and Shepard found herself biting back a grin.

"Diplomacy, Shepard," Garrus muttered, and she could've sworn he sounded deliberately bland. "Were we ever any good at it?"

"Ask me again later," she said, and latched one hand against the open door. Eight feet below, the spread of the landing zone swam into focus, all high yellow pillars and the running sound of the salarian groundstaff as they hurtled towards the shuttle. "Right now I guess we've got some krogan to ask nicely about."


	39. Exchanges

_Reviews and thoughts are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Thirty-Nine - Exchanges **_

Shepard threw herself behind the pillar and gritted her teeth through the shuddering thump of the grenade. She'd hurled it too high, and winced when it skittered wide, rolling past the Cerberus troops who'd flooded the upper stone walkway. _Fucking Cerberus_, she thought, always dancing two steps ahead and even here they'd been burrowed in and _had_ to have been whispering to someone on the inside, someone with the time and inclination to call in the _Normandy_'s arrival.

"Moving up," Shepard said, terse and clipped. Six sprinted steps took her beneath the hanging coils of vines, and behind the low rise of a wall. Sunlight, she noted, flooding in on all sides, and the rapid sound of the Cerberus soldiers as they advanced.

"Got four more," Garrus called out. "Coming in from the left."

"Why do you always have to give me the bad news first?" Shepard twisted, straightening up long enough to fire. The first volley scythed one of them off his feet, and the second toppled two more. They'd wasted too many minutes, she knew, slogging through smoke and kicked-up dust and the torn-apart wreckage of the research base.

And now she had a female krogan – _towering and the challenging throaty rasp of her voice not quite enough to mask the uncertainty in her eyes_ – who had clawed her way through this alive, and somehow they had to get her off-planet and safe and away from Cerberus. _And Mordin_, she thought, Mordin who'd sat with the memories of Maelon's experiments, the memories of empty rooms on Tuchanka, nothing in the air but the reek of death. Mordin, who had _almost_ sounded the same, his words tripping over each other, clipped and fast and precise, almost fast enough to hide the desperation there.

Bullets bit into the stone beside her shoulder and she swore, dropping into a crouch, aware of her shields as they blurred. She waited, shoulders rigid, while another burst of fire clattered against the wall above. The familiar almost-quiet followed – _the dip in the clamour, the sudden lull that meant you could exhale, could take stock, as long as you did it damn quickly_ – and she moved, uncoiling and vaulting forward. The impetus carried her past another pillar, and another, until she planted her shoulders flat against the solid stone.

"Clear up here," Vega said, close to breathless.

"Good," Shepard responded. She scanned the walkway, and the gloom of a colonnade, the air heavy with dust. "Garrus?"

"Mopped up," came the laconic reply, and she smiled slightly.

"Okay," she said. "Let's move up to the landing zone and get this finished."

Four minutes took them through the sunlight-stippled shadows of another walkway, the floor sloping up. Another two and she had Mordin's crackling affirmation that he had reached the last checkpoint, the female krogan impassive and wordless, the both of them wanting out of the damn glass-lined cage they'd been trapped in since the base had switched to full alert.

"Shepard," Garrus said, his gaze on his omni-tool.

"What?"

"We've got an Atlas coming in. It'll set down right in the LZ."

"Course it will," she said. She motioned Vega forward, flanking him, her gaze turning instinctively upward until she saw it, a blur of motion against the blue glare of the sky. "That your idea of good news this time?"

"Will be when I blow it up."

Shepard grinned. She settled her rifle against her shoulder. "We, Vakarian."

"We'll see."

She waited, her eyes never leaving it, aware of the slide of sweat at the back of her neck. "When it hits, we don't stop moving. We cut around it, behind it, whatever the hell we need to do."

"Hell, Commander," Vega said, and smiled. "Where's the fun in being careful?"

"Nice."

Heartbeats later, the Atlas hit, huge metal legs slamming hard against the ground. Already moving, Shepard hurtled past it, too aware of how its heavy guns were flaring and turning. She flung herself sideways, her head full of the rattling din as it fired. She caught at the edge of the wall and scrambled lower, wincing when another volley ripped into the stone above her head.

The Atlas was moving, and she could hear it, the crunch and grind of gears and cables as it swayed its way across the landing zone.

Shepard twisted round in time to see Vega fling a grenade. It arced in low, catching against the spars of the mech's leg. The thudding impact of it sent the mech staggering, its guns dropping low. A follow-up burst of bullets spun one of the mech's arms wider. She heard the relentless, whipcrack sound as Garrus fired in tandem, and then she was up and moving again, reaching for her grenade belt.

She unhooked the last one and heaved it up, fast and sharp enough that it smacked hard into the mech's gleaming canopy. The mech tipped and fell, smoke pluming up through the jagged, sparking mess they'd made of it.

Crookedly, Shepard grinned and said, "Draw?"

Garrus straightened up, slinging his rifle back over his shoulder. "I toppled it."

"I cracked the canopy."

She crossed the open, sun-washed stone to the last checkpoint. Seconds later she had the door keyed open, the female krogan striding out first, Mordin hovering behind her.

"Okay, Wrex," she said into her comm. She was aching, she realised, the slow, thrum of exertion as it burrowed its way under her skin. "Time to bring my shuttle back."

"On my way."

"Nothing but blue skies and pretty clouds up there?"

He laughed. "All clear, Shepard. What, one mech enough for you?"

She scrubbed a hand against the back of her head, gloved fingers pushing through sweat-slick hair. "It'll do for now."

* * *

><p>An hour later, Shepard stepped into the empty quiet of the rec room. She had marshaled Chakwas' help in getting Mordin and the female krogan settled in the medlab, and part of her wondered just how the hell the day had flown so fast.<p>

_Because they had needed it to_, she thought. Because they had to chase too many pieces into place and it _still_ felt like they were playing catch-up, like they were grasping at shadows in the shape of Cerberus and the Reapers and God knew what else.

She swung herself onto one of the treadmills and eased her legs into a gentle jog that pulled at the wiry tension that had locked itself around her muscles. Twelve minutes later, she heard the door, and twisted in time to see Garrus, the bulk of his shoulders filling the frame.

"Hey," he said mildly. "You okay?"

"You know," she answered, and slowed her pace. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel like a rookie after a groundside run."

"You'll get into it again." He crossed the floor and sat, his hands cupped loosely over his knees.

"Something about sitting down for six months."

His teeth flashed in a quick smile. "Excuses, excuses. Fun today, though."

"Fun?" She paused, her fingers loosening around the grip. She shrugged, gave in, and said, "Yeah. It was."

"All that running and weaving."

"Yeah, yeah. Damn Cerberus mech driver could just as well have tried to shoot your ass off first." She clambered off the treadmill and paused long enough to grab at one of the folded towels before she flopped onto the bench beside him. "Okay. Give me some advice."

"Never get drunk with a whole bunch of krogan."

She grinned. "How about just the one or two krogan?"

"Depends on the drink, and whether you're buying." His head tilted. "What's up?"

Absently, she rubbed at the sweat-matted mop of her hair with the towel. "The salarians won't be wanting to stick their necks out for us any time soon."

"But?"

"But that leaves us Wrex and your Primarch. Wrex I know."

"I get it." His gaze sharpened as he looked at her, blue and direct. "I don't know Victus that well. But, well. Be open but careful."

She leaned into the solid wall of his shoulder. "That's putting it very delicately."

"Hah. Sometimes you have to." He found her arm, his fingers curling around the back of her wrist. "He's got Palaven on his mind."

"Understandable."

"You know where you're going with this?"

"Sort of," she said, wryly, and felt the rumbling laughter of his response. "One thing to play around with ideas. A whole other to have a female krogan sitting in my medbay, and one that Mordin swears is a walking cure."

"She in bad shape?"

"She's had a hell of a time," Shepard admitted. She rolled her hand under his, so that she could feel the slide of his palm. "She's shaken, but Mordin reckons she should be okay. The problem is what happens when she gets off the ship."

"Alternatives?"

"That's the part I don't know yet. I don't know if Mordin _can_ synthesize a cure. If he can't," she said, and exhaled. "Then somehow we have to make Wrex believe what's happened to Palaven is worth his help anyway."

"And if Mordin can," Garrus said.

"Yeah, that's the part where I don't want to think about being the one who okayed the decision to say, _yeah, the krogan? Hell yes we could do with a few hundred thousand more of them right now_."

He must have heard the sudden, unexpected roughness in her voice. "Yeah," he said gently. "Not really a decision that loomed high on my list of things I want to be there to see happening. In fact not a decision that loomed at all, thinking about it."

She laughed. "Yeah, can't say it ever made my list either."

"What did?"

"Aside from wild and wonderful sex with a turian?" She paused, turning slightly, so that she could settle herself beneath the arch of his arm. "You know, years ago, I would've just said that I wanted to do things, and do them well. And now I know we have Reapers chewing up everything they can get their damn claws on and I think I'd be happy just to get through it breathing. Sorry."

"Why?"

"That came out a hell of a lot more seriously than I thought it was going to."

"It's okay. I'll pretend you said something really witty about being the best shot in the galaxy."

"Pretend? That part's true, remember?"

"Sure it is," he told her, teasingly.

She let herself sit there until the sweat on her lips dried, aware of little but the easy silence between them, the steady way he was breathing, the sharp angles of his jaw brushing the top of her head.

"So," she said, eventually, disentangling herself. "You got dinner plans?"

"Other than the _Normandy_'s finest whatever-the-hell it is that they serve up in the mess hall?" Garrus' expression shifted, something tightening around his eyes and in the lines of his mouth. "Going to spend a while at the comm. See if Sol's gotten a hold of Dad at all."

"Hey." She touched the back of his hand, finding the uneven texture of tiny new scars there_. _"Let me know if you hear anything."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I will."

* * *

><p>The briefing room was sparse and quiet, the table too wide and too empty under the clinical flood of the lights. Shepard waited, both hands braced over the back of a chair, and her thoughts already churning. The door swished open and Primarch Victus strode in, his shoulders trim beneath his tunic.<p>

"Primarch Victus," she said, and nodded. "Please, sit down."

He sat opposite, clasping his hands on the table. He was whipcord lean, she noticed, the angles of his face vivid with sloping white markings. "Thank you, Commander."

Pleasantries and platitudes, she knew, and she also knew she'd have to keep them going, thrown up as a barrier before they could talk their way around to the tenuous crux, the price for allegiance.

"Commander, I received your report on the Sur'Kesh mission," Victus said, his voice as carefully modulated. "It seems it went successfully."

"As successfully as it could have, I think. But yes," she added. "Doctor Solus will be putting his resources towards a cure."

"He's confident?"

"He's always confident," Shepard said, and saw something flash in the Primarch's level gaze, maybe slight amusement. "Of course, you understand that until he returns with results – results either way – there is little else we can do."

"Of course." Victus' eyes narrowed. "I suppose this is where you ask if I intend to go through with this."

"Yes," Shepard said, bluntly, quietly. "I don't know how to begin imagining how something like this will even be processed through the krogan population. I'm not sure it will be as easy as asking them all to line up for a shot in the arm."

Victus snorted. "No, Commander. I imagine not. However, if this is what is needed to send krogan troops to Palaven, then this is what I will agree to."

"You're certain?"

"Yes. I was on the ground on Menae, Commander. If the Reapers intend to remake the order of things, then perhaps we must do the same in response." He straightened, flattening his hands on the table. "May we speak plainly, Commander?"

"I'd be glad to."

"I would prefer the krogan as an ally now, cured, or about to be cured, or however else Wrex expects this to work out. I would prefer to deal with what may come as a result of this after Palaven is taken back."

Shepard smiled thinly. "You know, I think I caught myself saying something very similar a couple of days ago."

"It's easy, I think, to say that you would never do something. It's as easy to say that I never thought I would be Primarch, never mind the last Primarch."

"Never?"

"Perhaps," he allowed, and tipped his head to one side. "Not under circumstances such as these, however, and certainly not while being so far from Palaven."

"Yes," she said. "I cannot pretend to know how difficult that must been."

"No," he said, lifting one hand. "You saw what it was like. It may not have been easy, but I know it was necessary. From here, I am hoping more can be done."

"Thank you, Primarch. While you're here, if we can do anything to help you, or to help Palaven, let me know as soon as you need to."

"I'm grateful for that, Commander." His mouth shifted into a slight smile. "In fact, I was intending to ask Garrus to co-ordinate with me – with Palaven Command – once we sort this out."

"You know, I have to admit I never thought I'd hear _curing the genophage_ called _sorting something out_," she said mildly. "And of course, however you both agree."

"Information exchange, primarily. Spirits know communication relaying is bad enough even without Reaper fleets in the way."

Despite herself, Shepard found herself smiling, at the gruff resignation in his voice, at the wry tone beneath. "That I do."

"Was there anything else, Commander?"

"No," she said. She stood, waiting until he had done the same. "I'll forward Doctor Solus' progress reports as soon as I hear anything."

"Appreciated." Victus pushed the chair in. "Garrus speaks very highly of you, Commander."

She bit back the sudden urge to say something absurd and frivolous. Instead, she reached for the keypad, and settled for saying, "Yes. I'm pleased to say that we found out that we work well together."

* * *

><p>Garrus meandered his way through the mess hall, a tray balanced between his hands, and found Liara ensconced in the corner, Vega across from her, and Adams nodding his farewells as he stepped away from the table. Garrus paused, inclined his head to Adams when he wandered past, and said, "Busy day?"<p>

Liara smiled. "Combing through information feeds. I'd say it's been a normal day."

"You would say that." Garrus sat, swung his gaze towards Vega, and asked, "Did you talk to Cortez?"

Vega grinned. "Yeah. Something about how no sensible man would say no to a krogan who wants to steal his shuttle."

"Can't say that I blame him."

"Yeah, not sure I'd be the one to ask for my controls back."

"Well," Garrus said lightly. "You could _ask_."

Vega's laughter answered him, and after that the evening wore away slowly, the dayshift crew ambling their way towards quarters or else the rec room or the observation deck. Chakwas joined them briefly, saying something arch about how Mordin had cast her out of the medbay while he worked. The mess hall was close to empty by the time Shepard crossed the floor from the elevator.

She found a tray and food and coffee before she flopped into a chair beside him. Her knee brushed his, and mildly she said, "Don't all stop talking on my account."

"Long day," Garrus said.

"Yeah," she said. "It was. Did you tell Liara that we saw the next contender for her position down there on Sur'Kesh? Big angry one, too."

"The next?" Liara said, and smiled wryly. "Oh. This is a yahg joke, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Shepard admitted, grinning. "Sorry."

"I'm sure I can forgive you."

Vega leaned his elbows on the table. "Really not seeing how that thing we saw down there was funny."

"We went after the Shadow Broker," Shepard said, lifting the mug. "Original Shadow Broker. Or, well, the previous Shadow Broker. It was a hell of a long trek through Ilium."

"Yeah," Garrus said. "Shepard fell off a roof, shot a Spectre, and crashed at least one skycar."

Shepard laughed. "That's a really strategic analysis. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Eventually, we found our way back to his ship, and he turned out to be a yahg. One of those things."

Vega frowned. "Really?"

"It was something of a surprise at the time, as I recall," Shepard said, her mouth still curved into a smile. "But, yes."

Garrus stayed mostly silent while she ate, aware of how she'd slid closer, aware of how she was half-listening to Liara and Vega as they swapped stories. Missions spent slogging through sodden green jungles and days on half-abandoned dig sites where the wind would fling dust and bits of stone against visors and clothes and artifacts.

"We don't have a clear plan right now," Shepard said, once Vega finished up detailing an assignment that included vorcha and too much whiskey. "We're waiting on Mordin."

"And until then?" Vega asked.

"I spoke to Primarch Victus earlier, and after I'd seen him, I went and cornered Wrex." Her smile returned, crooked this time. "Victus is in step with us right now, waiting. Wrex wants things moving faster."

"That's easy to understand," Liara said. "His clans and his planet are in danger of an all-out Reaper attack, and he's holding the only possibility of a cure that he's ever going to have."

"So he's asked us a favour," Shepard said. "We'll be swinging around towards an exciting floating bit of rock called Utukku."

"Any particular reason?" Garrus asked.

"Krogan commandos on a scouting mission. And Wrex's information suggests that they may well have scouted their way into rachni."

Garrus swallowed. He remembered the needling cold on Noveria, and how his breath had hung in the air there in unmoving plumes. How his boots had dragged across the disorienting slide of the ice, how the knife-sharp shadows inside the base had given way to things that had moved, writhing and crawling.

_The door snicked shut behind them, and he let himself straighten up. He was still cold, and he could feel it, tightening his joints and knotting his muscles. Even after the absurd afternoon they'd had, picking their way through the base and the huge twisting monsters and finally into the humid heat of the lab complex._

"_Vakarian," Shepard said briskly. "You okay?"_

"_Still going." _

_She was still eying him, as if she wanted to say something about the way he was holding himself, rigid and awkward. _

"_Really," he said, sharper that he meant to, because she needed to be thinking about Benezia right now, and about how Liara was still tight-lipped and silent, as she had been since the Mako had thundered into the rolling white dunes. _

"_Okay. Let's move on. Two at a time, keeping it slow, and shout if you see anything wave even a single tentacle." _

"Rachni," Garrus said musingly. "Now there's a whole load of fun. If it's true."

"Even if it's not, something's happening on Utukku. Which is why," Shepard said, and grinned. "I'll be needing some volunteers to come along with me and find out."

"Volunteers," he said wryly. "That's such a great term."

"I like to think so."

Half an hour later, the others excused themselves, Liara muttering about going over her drone's datafeeds, and Vega taking himself down to the rec room.

"So," Shepard said, and nudged him. "Your Primarch says you speak highly of me."

"You sharing gossip now, Shepard?"

"Only gossip I get from military leaders."

"Selective. I'm impressed."

"You should be," she said, and when she leaned back from the table, he read his own thoughts in her face.

Shepard moved first, standing and reaching for him, and he followed her, his fingers locking briefly around hers. For a small, marveling instant, he wondered at the ease of it, the simplicity of it, of meandering their way to the elevator and into her quarters – _their quarters, he thought, and he figured he needed to have the words in his head like that_ – and across the floor to the bed.

It was lazy and unhurried, her clothes still half-on and his mostly gone after he rolled onto his side. They moved, shifting closer, until he had one hand under her thigh, lifting just enough that he could bury himself in her. She met the slow surge of his rhythm, her back arching against his chest and her breathing turning ragged. Afterwards, she stayed there, her hands latched over one of his.

"So," Garrus said, and mouthed at the damp line of her shoulder. "You reckon Wrex is right?"

"About the rachni or about the cure?" She stirred long enough to glance back at him, dark eyes sparkling. "And have I ever mentioned how bad you are at this whole pillow talk thing?"

"How bad we are," he countered lightly.

"You have me there." He felt the teasing play of her fingers against the back of his wrist before she said, "Wrex is right more than he's wrong. He might not pretty it all up in the right words, but…"

"Yeah," Garrus said. "I know. And yes, I'll come hunt some more rachni with you."

She wriggled her way back over and grabbed at the crumpled sheets. "You will? That's so sweet."

"You're embarrassing me here, Shepard."

"Course I am." Her expression softened. "You get through to your sister?"

"No," he said, his teeth clicking shut on the word. "No, it's – it's as if out here, I'm lucky when I get static. And then it's easy to forget after you step away from the comm."

"And it just leaps up at you when you don't have anything else to think about," she said. "I get it. I also get that that doesn't really help."

"No," he said, softer. "It helps."

* * *

><p>Joker scrubbed one hand over the back of his cap and briefly, he wondered if the main screen might change if he glared at it long enough. They'd been down on the damn planet nearly five hours, the minutes crawling while he checked and re-checked the scanners for the first slippery hint of Reaper activity.<p>

"Jeff," EDI said, mildly admonishing. "You're very tired."

"Noticed, did you?" There was little venom in his voice, and besides, he knew she was right in any case. "After we get the ground team back on board."

"They may not be back for some time."

"And there she goes, with all the logic." Joker swung the chair sideways slightly so that he could look at her, all lean silver frame and the quick way her fingers flitted across the keyboard. "It's just," he said, and hesitated.

"I am listening."

"Thought I'd catch up on some downtime once we got to the Citadel. But then we had to go running off to save Garrus, and then we had to go running off to save Mordin and his lady krogan, and now they're down there running around with a bunch of commandos." He shrugged. "It's like every time we've done something, something else rushes up to take its place."

"I believe that is called serving on an active ship."

"Yeah. That's funny." He paused, weighing the words, aware of her poised, listening presence. "Feels different, that's all. Feels like we really need to get everything right."

"And it did not feel like this before?"

"Well, yeah. Sometimes. But we got through that."

"So the problem is that you are presupposing some kind of failure."

"No, the problem is that I'm presupposing that we'll have Reapers trying to eat the ship every time we make a move. Or something like that." Almost despite himself, he smiled. "How was your day?"

EDI's hands stilled on the keyboard. "I have begun to notice that the crew prefer to seek me out on the bridge, even though they could approach me at several points of communication across the ship."

"Can't blame them. It's a better view from here."

"It is more than that," she said, and he thought he heard her smiling. "It is as if it is reassuring to them."

"Again I have the same response," he said, and bit back a grin when she shot him a steely look. The comm station buzzed, and he leaned forward. "Joker here."

"Joker, Cortez. We'll be in the shuttle bay in minutes."

"Good to hear. Anything I need to know?"

"No. Everyone's walking and talking."

Some of the tension eased from his shoulders, and he responded, "Good. _Normandy_ out."

By the time the smaller screen on his left informed him they'd closed up the shuttle bay and settled in, he'd already mapped out the ship's trajectory away from Utukku and into the blackness beyond. The steady thrum of the engines followed, and the dizzying slide of the stars across the cockpit screens.

Footsteps cracked against the walkway behind, and Shepard said, "All good up here?"

He nodded without turning, his gaze on the main console. "We are always good."

"Of course you are."

"So," Joker said, and spun his chair around. "How did it go down there, Commander?"

"Let's see," Shepard said thoughtfully. "I am covered in stuff that I can't even name, my armour has a really big dent in it, I discovered that rachni are even more unsettling when you cross them with Reaper tech. Oh, and Grunt says hi."

"Grunt? He's all grown up properly now?"

"Got his own platoon."

Joker frowned. "That sounds terrifying, actually, Commander."

She grinned. "Thanks for your input."

"Any time. Do I want to know about the dent?"

"A really big rachni tried to run me over."

"You know, it's these little talks we have that convince me that I'm _not_ the crazy one."

"I'm sure there's a compliment there somewhere. Anything else I need to know?"

"Actually, yeah." Joker nodded again. "Traynor mentioned Primarch Victus would like to see you. Said it was urgent."

"As in, _really urgent_, or as in, _don't want to wait_, urgent?"

"Traynor reckoned the first."

"Okay," Shepard said briskly. "Let him know I can meet him in the briefing room, five minutes."

* * *

><p>Short-notice rescue ops, Shepard thought, always seemed to come full of holes, gaps where too much could go too wrong too fucking quickly. And then there had been the flatness in Victus' voice, and the way he had talked her through it rapidly, the words clipped and sharp, as if he was wound up too tight about what it might mean.<p>

_A Cerberus bomb, and a turian platoon stranded at a stretched-out Tuchanka crash site, and the desperate awareness that they needed it hushed away and severed from krogan knowledge. _

Too many pieces jutting awkwardly against each other, and she wondered at the stark truth of the location. Near the Kelphic Valley, Victus had said, and once she'd done some digging – _once she'd had EDI run some basic details up for her_ – she had found herself staring at a description of squares of territory swarming heavy with krogan clans.

The sky above was bruised yellow, and whenever she breathed, she could taste the dust, gritty and thick. They'd touched the ground – broken and rocky and the air all hazed with smoke – and instants later, Vega reported movement, and a lot of it, clustered somewhere up ahead.

"Cortez?"

Through the crackle of static, she heard him say, "Commander?"

"Clear enough for you to stick around?"

"I can try, Commander. Can't promise it'll stay clear."

"I understand. Stay close if you can," she said brusquely. "We may need a quick pick-up if this goes to hell."

"I hear you. I'll keep you updated."

"Likewise. Shepard out."

"If," Garrus said drily. "Optimism?"

"Always," she retorted.

She scanned the sloping ground ahead, framed on two sides by half-crumpled stone towers and pluming twists of smoke. Terrain already torn to shit, she thought, and their brutally quick mission turnaround wouldn't be helping any if – _when_, she knew, _when_ – they ran smack into trouble.

"Okay," she said. "We've got the Primarch's son and a lost platoon down here. Garrus, thoughts?"

"Nice to be called on as an expert." More seriously, he added, "I don't know, not until we see more. But if it's what we know so far, if he's dropped them down here, then, well. Let's just say that we're a hard bunch to please, and he won't be coming out of this pretty if he comes out of it at all."

Shepard exhaled sharply. "Right."

Garrus settled his shoulders against the pitted edge of the stone wall. "All I got is that it's damn odd for this to be so wrapped in secrecy. Oh, and that I guess we'll get another chance to kick the hell out of Cerberus."

"Yeah, that's always a bonus," she said almost absently. She looked at the rise of the ground, and the roiling sky above. Somewhere close by, she heard the grinding clamour of metal meeting stone, and the blurred din of combat, the rattle of gunfire splitting the air. "Okay. Let's move up closer. If we can get a hail up to Lieutenant Victus we might be able to get ourselves a better handle on this."


	40. Gathering

_As always, Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Forty – Gathering **_

The sharp angles of the bomb cut the pale wash of the sunlight, jagged and towering where it speared up out of the uneven ground. Shepard exhaled slowly and wondered how it was that again they'd managed to land themselves smack in the middle of an assignment that had a rapidly dissolving time limit. She flattened her shoulders against the rough stone spar and looked across at Lieutenant Victus – _Tarquin Victus_, she reminded herself, _Tarquin_, and he'd sounded far too young, his voice wracked by exhaustion and the terrible knowledge that they'd be wrangling with the bomb and with Cerberus.

"That thing is fucking huge," Shepard muttered. "Anyone want to cheer me up with a guess at the blast radius?"

"Big enough that whichever poor bastard gets to brush up the pieces afterwards won't be able the difference between us and the ground we're standing on."

"Thanks, Vega. Always there to boost my spirits." She eased her grip on her rifle. She sorted through her thoughts again, ideas colliding against each other. Bomb first and survival second and _god_ some part of her hated this kind of op, where the awareness of each second as it clawed its slinking way past could rattle your nerves too far. "Okay. We need to get this done, fast as we can make ourselves do it. Lieutenant Victus, you're sure you want to do this?"

"Yes," he answered tightly.

"Then you do your work and you do it fast and you ignore Cerberus. We've got them incoming, slow and steady. We'll keep them off you."

"Yes, Commander. And the rest of my platoon?"

"They'll be our back-up. They'll stay low and behind cover." She forced a slight smile. "Let's get as many of them out of here as we can."

"Yes, Commander," Lieutenant Victus said. "I agree."

"Good. Be ready to move on my mark." She turned, her fingers finding her comm unit. "Cortez, we have problems down here."

"When don't you?"

"Funny. Rescinding what I said before. Get the shuttle well clear."

"What's up, Commander?"

"There's a fairly nasty chance this bomb will send everything sky-high, and that shuttle's expensive."

She heard his sharp, sudden inhalation. "I always knew you cared. Stay alive, Commander."

"I'll shout if I need you."

"So," Garrus said, and nudged her gently. "If we live through this, who gets to tell Wrex?"

She snorted. "You volunteering?"

"Different times," he said, his voice roughening slightly. "Desperate times. Makes a brutal kind of sense, I guess. The krogan try anything, we kick them down hard."

"You do what you have to," she said. "You work with what you've got at the time."

"I get it," Vega remarked. "In a way, I get it. Maybe we have more in common with the turians than I thought."

"You know," Garrus said, almost absently. His fingers skimmed over his rifle, checking and rechecking the weight, she knew, the movement deft and unconscious. "Not sure if that's a compliment or not. We're ready?"

"We're ready," Shepard said. "Lieutenant Victus?"

"On my way." He uncoiled upright, already halfway to a run by the time he cleared the slope. His feet struck hard against the gantry, and he was hauling himself higher, lunging for the wide spread of the control panels.

As briskly, Shepard vaulted over the crest of the slope and lower, moving until she'd crossed between crumpled stone pillars. Underfoot, the terrain was gritty, sliding under her heels when she ran, bits of stone and soil and dust slithering. She was aware of the others behind her, and then the grinding noise of shuttles as they rumbled in overhead.

"Garrus," she said, and rolled to her knees, braced behind the rough rise of a boulder. "Take the left."

"On it," he responded.

She scanned the area again, walled on three sides with unforgiving stone and far too fucking stifling. She watched the second shuttle as it lowered, stamped on both sides with black and yellow. She waited, shoulders tight, until the door slid open. Instants later she was shifting upright and hurling a grenade, not stopping to watch as it impacted hard against the slant of the door. She heard the clamour of it – _metal buckling and the expected rush of heat and the way the air rippled_ – and she was moving again, pushing off to a sprint.

A spray of bullets sliced the air above her head. Instinctively she jerked sideways, and another round tore into the stone beside her shoulder. She whirled into a half-crouch. Carefully – _glacially carefully, because she knew they had no room to move and less to fuck anything up_ – she hefted her rifle and fired. The volley combed across three Cerberus soldiers as they launched out of another shuttle. As briskly, she altered the rifle's angle and tracked them to the ground, firing until they crumpled against each other.

"Commander? Commander, come in?"

"I hear you, Lieutenant. Problem?"

"Yes," he said, the word gasped-out. "I'll need to carve the detonator out."

"By _hand?_"

"Yes."

The solid thump of a grenade sent the third shuttle wobbling. "Whatever you need to do," she said brusquely. "We'll get you the time."

"Appreciated, Commander."

Her omni-tool flashed, and she turned, her gaze finding another shuttle, and beneath it, Cerberus troops already on the damn ground. A terse burst of fire sent one of them sprawling, hands splaying wide and lifeless. Her follow-up round staggered the second, but the third straightened and fired. The bullets ploughed into the stone an inch from her temple, and she heard the buzz of her shields as they flared.

Furiously, she threw herself sideways. Her knees hit the ground hard enough to drive the breath from her chest. Another desperate motion had the rifle tucked in close, her finger curling loosely around the trigger. She sighted on the Cerberus soldier, waiting until she could see the blank gleam of his visor. The first shot swept his feet out, and the second cracked his armour apart at the throat.

"Shepard," Garrus said, his breathing hitching. "We got another shuttle coming down."

"They really don't know when to quit," she responded, almost automatically. "On my way."

She was halfway back across, her omni-tool spilling out markers and traces of movement, when Lieutenant Victus' voice jarred her.

"Commander, there's a," he said, frantic and rushed and the rest of the words drowned by his breathing or Cerberus interference or something else.

"Say again," she snapped. "Lieutenant, I'm losing you."

"Lock's jammed. Last lock. Going to have to," he said, and the static swallowed his voice again.

Wildly she spun, her gaze jumping from the rough, uneven spread of the ground to the spars framing the bomb. Seconds later she saw him, hanging over empty air, his other hand wrenching desperately at a half-open panel. Somehow he lunged higher, his hand latching over the panel and pulling. She ran, the awareness of it like ice under her skin, knowing it was fucking useless, knowing she wouldn't – _couldn't_ – make it across in time to do anything. She saw it, the detonator breaking clear, plummeting, hauling him down with it. The gantry cascaded in after, shuddering down into the gaping maw of the excavation area.

She swallowed, the taste of the dust acrid on her tongue. "Garrus, you clear back there?"

"Clear."

"You saw?"

"I saw," he said heavily.

"Okay." She eased the cramped grip she still had on her rifle. "Let's get out of here."

* * *

><p>Shepard glared at the smudged blur of her reflection, trapped in the propped-up backplate of her armour, halfway to scrubbed clean and <em>still<em> she thought she could smell it, the dry dust of Tuchanka. Rumours flew too damn fast, and turned poisonous as quickly, so she'd spoken to Victus as soon as they'd boarded. She'd never been able to shake the unease of it, the awful way the ending of lives became blandly reworded as logging a KIA status.

_"Unexpected things happen," Victus said, the measured tones of his voice fraying slightly. He grasped the edge of the table. "The bomb was dealt with." _

_ "Yes." _

_ "And my son's memory will be held with the histories of the Ninth Platoon."_

_ Uselessly, she said, "I'm so sorry." _

_ "Thank you, Commander," he said. His eyes flickered, too fast. He stood. "If you'll forgive me, I have things to attend to." _

_ She nodded, and helplessly she watched as he walked away, his feet cracking hard against the steps. _

She slammed the armour piece onto the rack. As brusquely, she turned her attention to the rest of it, both greaves scored with grit and the dip where a bullet had clipped too close.

The door opened, and she heard Garrus, his footfalls familiar as he padded across the floor. He joined her at the table, the table and the corner they'd turned into half a hoard and half a workbench, scattered with weapon oil and clips and that pistol she still had to cart down to the armoury.

Without turning, Shepard snapped, "That was a failure."

"No," Garrus said heavily. "Not to us."

"Right."

"Humans expect everyone to be standing at the end of it," he said. "We're happy if just one of us gets through."

"Happy," she echoed.

"Well," he said, and something around his eyes softened. "Maybe not _happy_."

"You know the worst part?"

"You were wondering if the Primarch was going to pull his support."

"Yeah," she admitted. "How do you always know what I'm thinking?"

"Because you're easy to read," he retorted mildly. "And because it was an outcome that crossed my mind. But Victus is – well, he's said he'll do something, he'll do it."

She stacked the last pieces of her armour, the knot in her stomach still there, still not quite dissipating. "Last resorts and secrets," she said musingly. "Easy to say that they should all be dragged out into daylight. Unless of course they're our last resorts and secrets, and then, hell yeah. Keep them buried." She sighed. "And that's really not helpful."

"I get it," he said. "Just like it's easy to say we need to throw everyone into an alliance together. Then you start trying and damn it if every damn person in this galaxy doesn't have an opinion of their own."

Shepard spluttered into a laugh. "Inconvenient. And I am not easy to read."

"Well," he said, his mouth shifting into a small smile. He cupped her chin, his thumb rolling under her jaw, finding soft skin and the tempo of her pulse. "Maybe just to me."

She leaned into the cradling pressure of his hand until he gathered her against his shoulder, close enough that she could smell him, warm and solid and somehow slightly metallic.

"Did you talk to Wrex?"

"Yeah," she answered. "He said something about Tuchanka being his radioactive pile of rubble and no one else's."

"He took it that well, did he?"

She snorted. "I almost pity the next Cerberus soldier he runs into. Since, you know, he's not allowed to take it out on any turians."

"It was a long time ago," Garrus said, protesting.

"I know. And I can't say I wouldn't have ordered the same thing, then." She turned her face into the hollow of his shoulder, breathing him in. Almost absently, she traced the rigid angles and dips of his chest, the way thick plates tapered towards softer skin above his waist. "And fucking Cerberus. How'd they know this? How much else do they know?"

"I don't know. Not sure I want to know."

"I hear that." She plucked idly at the folds of his fatigues, the fabric sliding between her fingers.

"You're distracting me here, Shepard."

"It's our room. It's allowed."

He laughed, low in his throat, and she felt the thrum of it beneath her cheek. "That's a convincing argument. I'll give you that much."

"Thank you," she said wryly. "I never asked you how the rest of your day went."

"I jumped on the comm and got through to Corinthus. His command base is still standing."

"Good," she said, fiercely. "Any change?"

"Reaper tactics staying the same, he said. They throw everything at the damn base, and then they do it again. And the crazy part," Garrus said, and sucked in a deep, gulping breath. "The crazy part is it sounded almost like good news."

"He's still standing," Shepard said, and kissed the slant of his shoulder. "That's always good news."

* * *

><p>The message screen was blank, as it had been for too long, and Tali glowered at it for another long moment before she surrendered and flicked her omni-tool off. She willed her thoughts flat and focused on the console beside her elbow, supply lists and weapon stocks and the last additions from the Civilian Fleet, Admiral Koris' exactingly detailed personnel reports.<p>

_"Hey, Tali?"_

_ "Mmm," she mumbled over her shoulder. "One second."_

_ "Got a present for you," Shepard said genially. _

_ "What kind of present?" She turned in time to see Shepard braced against the doorframe, Ashley beside her, and the sagging silver frame of a geth strung between them. _

_ "Shepard," Tali said wryly. "You're so thoughtful."_

_ "Thought you might want to take a closer look at it. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this one is new." Shepard frowned. "New to us, I mean." _

_ She watched as they levered the geth onto the workbench. "It's deactivated?"_

_ "Yeah. It's also missing the whole inside of its head." _

_ "Where did you find it?"_

_ "That beacon we thought would be a good idea to track?" Shepard grinned, lopsidedly. "Not so much fun, as it turned out."_

_ Intrigued, Tali leaned over the geth. She was half aware of her suit, readings flaring and noting the coppery stink of gunfire, still clinging to it. Charred wirings and the silent core of it, and the odd, stringy cables that ran the length of its legs. _

_ "This is different," she admitted. "Infiltration unit, maybe."_

_ "I wondered," Shepard said. She leaned against the wall, arms folded. "It was damn fast when it moved." _

_ "I'm guessing here," Tali said. "But it's very light and I'd say quite a bit smaller. I'd be inclined to agree. Infiltration or scouting."_

_ "So," Ashley said musingly. "How many types of these things are there?"_

_ "I don't know," Tali said. She reached for a thin-bladed set of pliers. "I'll let you know if I find anything interesting." _

The console flickered, jolting her attention to the screen, another interminable list updating. Part of her wanted to shove it all aside and scour the ship's comm chatter reports for anything about Reapers, anything about unnervingly huge ships that flitted their way through systems as if they knew where to go.

_Like they'd known to go to Earth. _

_ Like they'd known to go to Palaven_.

She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the desk and exhaled sharply. Even out here they had heard the bare tatters of the reports, half exaggeration and half true, and all of them agreeing that Earth was cut off, that the Alliance had abandoned their own planet, that Luna Base was a smoking crater, that there were few humans left, their colonies ravaged clean. What little she had dredged up about Palaven had been all too similar, rumours mixing with truth and coming up half-baked and panicked.

And here she sat, she thought, her console unreeling its deceptively bland lists, the bloodless mechanics of supply and shore up and arm and rearm. Reapers clawing their way through the galaxy and the rest of the Admiralty Board could not breathe without mentioning geth, or Rannoch, she thought sourly.

Some part of her understood, painfully, terribly. The idea of it, the imagining of it, Rannoch, the word meaning everything they did not have.

She heard footsteps on the walkway behind her, and Raan's voice. "Tali, are you ready?"

"Coming," she said, and pushed herself up from the desk.

Briskly, she strode past Raan, and tried not to notice how Raan's shoulders sank slightly, how she did not quicken her pace to match. She wove her way through the crowded walkway outside, instinctively noting the thrum of the engines and the slight tilt of the ship, curving.

In the meeting room, she found Xen and Koris already there, and both of them sitting silently, rigid and furious.

"What's changed?" Tali asked.

"Nothing," Koris answered, and slapped his gloved hands onto the table. "Which is entirely my problem."

"We can move onto discussion once Han'Gerrel is here," Raan said evenly.

Tali chose one of the chairs on the other side of the table, closer to Koris. After she sat, she scrutinized Xen, the way her hands were crossed over each other on the table, the way she was speaking now to Raan, her glacial tones as measured as always. She waited, her own thoughts churning, and when Han'Gerrel marched across the threshold, she was almost relieved.

"We have updates," Xen said smoothly, her head tilting towards Gerrel.

"Talk me through," he said.

"I've found that flashbang countermeasures are having a greater effect than I'd originally anticipated. They leave the geth scrambling. Deployed in sufficient numbers, with economic use, I believe they will prove invaluable."

"Which is exactly my point," Koris said, and leaned back in his chair. "The geth are scrambling. Wonderful. I'm not seeing why the Civilian Fleet needs to be there to see them scramble."

"We've beaten them back to our home system," Gerrel said. He spun a chair out and sat. "Running now would undo everything we've achieved so far."

"I concur," Xen said mildly.

"Chasing scout groups out of systems they've barely gotten a hold in is _not_ the same as launching an all-out assault on Rannoch," Koris said heavily.

"They _are_ retreating."

"Yes, Admiral Xen. I'm aware of that." He shifted again, awkwardly and uneasily. "The position you're putting my fleet in is not one that I'm at all comfortable with."

"Noted," Gerrel said.

"Wait." Tali spread her hands against the table. She could feel them watching her, in the same studying, impatient way they always did at these dreadful meetings, when their words would clash back and forth and they would stalk away afterwards and say the same things the next time. "I agree with Admiral Zaal'Koris. We depend upon the Civilian Fleet. We _have_ to depend upon the Civilian Fleet. We cannot talk of them as if they are weapon supplies."

"War changes definitions," Xen said.

"You're not listening," Tali said sharply. "As much as we might want to have Rannoch under our control, as much as it _might_ work, there are other – you've all seen the reports. You must have. The Reapers."

"Tali, we've gone over this argument," Raan said. "What concerns other systems right now does not concern Rannoch."

"But it _will_," she snapped. "You're not hearing me. And if you'll excuse me, I have work to be getting back to."

Before she had time to think about it, before she had time to acknowledge the way her nerves were jangling, she shoved upright and away from the table. Six more steps took her around and to the door and then she was through, and into the companionway beyond, her hands clasped at her waist to mask the way she was shaking. As unthinkingly, she made her way down to the engine room, and checking the humming systems there until her hands were steady again.

She was halfway through running a diagnostic on a console – it was sticky, it had always been sticky, this one, apt to trip over its own relay commands – when she heard footsteps behind her.

"I know you're busy," Admiral Koris said.

Her hands stilled on the keyboard. She did not turn, but she said, "Talk as I'm working, if you want."

"You know we can't dissuade them."

She swallowed. "I know. I've tried – I've tried showing them every visual feed I dug up from Palaven, from Earth, from the Citadel. They're swamped with refugees there and it's only going to get worse."

"And you believe these Reapers will come for us?"

"They'll come for everything and everyone. We might be last," Tali said, and swiped viciously at the screen. "But they'll still come for us."

She heard his footfalls again, and then the softer sound of him leaning against something, probably the workbench.

"I would suggest an agreement, of sorts. If you'll hear me out," Koris said.

"What are you thinking?"

"We're going to Rannoch," he said heavily. "Unless you want to fracture the Flotilla in half. We're already halfway there."

"I know. I've seen it. I've seen them."

"I'd suggest we make certain the Civilian Fleet is fully supported. I suspect we can't countermand Xen's wishes, but perhaps we can stall them. I won't have them stripped of supplies."

Tali turned, her shoulders slumping. "I agree. I do. I'm uncertain – how would this work?"

"I'll send every decision I make to you, first," he said, his voice clipped. "You'll add your support. I can do the same for you. And we'll need to talk, be heard talking, be as loud as you need to be for anyone to hear that you won't put Rannoch above the safety of our people."

"And that'll work?"

"That might help," he said guardedly, and she understood.

"Okay." She twisted her hands against each other. "Then let's see what we can do."

* * *

><p>"Primarch, sir." Garrus paused, his hand on the doorframe. "Sorry to intrude."<p>

Victus shifted from where he stood, poring over the table and the gleaming lines of the display that hovered above it. "No, come in, Vakarian. You heard?"

He had, the awareness of it still swimming somewhere in his gut, Mordin's words framing the impossibility of _change_. Mordin tripping over his own voice, and Shepard interjecting and gently motioning him slower, while he rattled off ideas about the Shroud and climate and widespread dispersal arcs and long-range viability. "Yes, sir. Seems Solus is convinced he's worked it through."

"What do you think?"

"I think we'd do well to trust his judgment." Garrus shrugged and added, "He might be crazy, but he's sharp."

Victus nodded. "Commander Shepard will be going in on the ground, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I thought we'd talk through some air support ideas."

Almost despite himself, Garrus grinned. "And here I thought I'd have to beg."

"Only if you want to," Victus said, slightly wry. He gestured to the bright glow of the display. "Topographic layout, from Wrex. He's uncertain as to Reaper ground troop numbers, but he's sworn he'll keep us updated."

Briefly, Garrus considered muttering something sardonic about cooperation, and how sometimes it could be jostled into place, but the memory of Tuchanka rose up. He clicked his teeth together and said, "I'd assume they'll be there in force. They so much as think we're there for something important, they'll swarm us."

"Yes," Victus said. "You'll have Artimec Wing shadowing the ground team."

"Thank you, sir." Garrus hesitated. He'd seen the stiff way Victus' hands were still splayed against the table, the way his eyes were tired, glassy with it. He'd seen it, those scant few days ago, the gantry collapsing into the hewn-out excavation site below, taking metal and dust and the Primarch's son with it. And numbers were numbers and names were somehow all the same once you'd added them to a casualty list but that wasn't the damn point, not when the brittle pain of it dug under your skin.

"Primarch," he said, uncertain of what he wanted to say, what else he _could_ say.

"That will be all. Thank you, Vakarian."

"Of course, sir."

Five minutes took him through the CIC, hectic with lights and the patter of the crew as they swapped shifts at console banks and constellation charts. Two decks lower, he found Shepard in the armoury, midway through checking crated ammo supplies.

"For Tuchanka?" Garrus asked genially.

She threw him a quick smile, pale under the spill of the lights, her hair rumpled from however many times she'd pushed her hands through the short dark mop of it. "Would it be weird to call a pile of grenades a peace offering for our krogan allies?"

"Call it a cooperation offering."

"I might just do that." Her eyes flickered, taking in the last roped stack of the grenades. "I've gone over the damn weapon list four times. And then I keep wondering what the hell else we might find down there, so I add something else."

"Thoughts on what we'll run into?"

"Reaper troops, more Reaper troops, something huge and ugly." She smiled, half-smiled, and he saw the tension in her face, around her eyes and in the narrow line of her jaw. "Yeah, I know. I'm over-thinking it."

"Well," he said, gently. "Maybe a little."

"I don't know, Garrus. This feels big."

"It is." He crossed the small stretch of the distance between them and leaned against the workbench beside her. He watched the darting motions of her thin, human fingers and said, "Technically we'll be doing something no one thought would ever happen. And we'll be doing it while running circles around Reapers."

"Damn. And here I thought you were going to be all reassuring."

He laughed. "Sorry."

"You're forgiven." Shepard turned, her hands flattening against sides of the crate. "I talked to Eve."

"Mordin's krogan?"

"She's tough, Garrus. Tough as all hell." Thoughtfully, she added, "She wants her planet back and I'm inclined to believe she'd made it work, with us or without us."

He touched the back of her hand, tracing the slender, steely muscles there. "Is that good or terrifying?"

She laughed, unevenly, as if she hadn't quite meant to. "Right now, I'll go with good. You all organized?"

"Yeah," he answered. "Primarch's signed off on air support."

"He's okay?"

"No," he said, rougher. "I guess he's really not."

She rolled her hand under his, gripping hard. She'd turned, her arm lining up against his, when her comm unit buzzed. Her eyebrows lifted, and she said, "Shepard here."

"Sorry, Commander," Traynor answered.

"What can I do for you, Traynor?"

"I've, ah. I've got the dalatrass waiting on the secondary QEC."

"The dalatrass? I thought I was squarely on her shit list. What does she want?"

"She says it's crucial she speak with you, as soon as possible."

"Okay. I'll be there inside ten minutes. Thanks, Traynor." Her fingers slipped off the comm unit. "And that's not odd at all."

Idly, Garrus tipped the side of his head against hers. The scent of her filled his mouth, skin and soap and fabric and the slightest surge of heat. "Maybe they've worked out how many buildings we tore through getting after Cerberus."

She laughed. "I'll be sure to let you know. You want to finish up down here for me?"

"Am I getting paid for this?"

"Well," she said, and twisted so she could press her lips just below his markings. "I'm sure I'll think of something."

"That's not payment, Shepard. That's just good old-fashioned temptation."

She disentangled herself from him, her eyes still on his. "Whatever you want to call it."

* * *

><p>Shepard snapped the pieces of her armour into place, rhythmic and half without thinking, her fingers knowing every catch and clasp and the way she had to let the back-plate settle for a few heartbeats. As rapidly, she reached for her rifle, swinging it up and into its harness.<p>

_The dalatrass_, she thought fiercely. The dalatrass and how she'd flung dissembling words at her, about uplifting and choices and the desperate need to keep the galaxy ordered and under control.

She'd snarled back at her, something vicious about how nothing was fucking under control right now. About how she had Reapers stampeding their way through systems one at a time, and how the weight of a few thousand allied krogan could really kick the scales in their direction.

_"You're making a terrible mistake, Commander."_

_ "I might have to live with that."_

_ The QEC field rippled, sparking at the edges. "Might you, Commander? The krogan reproduce fast. They overrun, they attack, they are the aggressors. They know one way of living, one way of fighting."_

_ Coldly, Shepard said, "And I have Reapers storming through the galaxy while we speak."_

_ "You're trading one enemy for another."_

_ "No," she said. "I'm trading one enemy for an ally."_

_ "And you think they will give way once Tuchanka is given back to them?"_

_ "Expansion can be negotiated," she said fiercely. "What the Reapers are doing and what they are is something that cannot."_

_ "You're certain, Commander?"_

_ "Yes, dalatrass," she said, and reached for the comm button. "Right now I am." _

In the briefing room, she found them waiting, in that terse, expectant kind of silence that she knew meant no one had rested well, no one had heaved the thoughts of it aside, not properly. Wrex sat beside Eve, hulking and armoured and his gaze never leaving her, Mordin hovering behind them. Garrus, seated across from Vega and Liara, and the three of them muttering, something low-toned.

"Got an update," she said, abruptly. "The dalatrass wanted to talk to me, and she happened to mention that we – well, I – might think about fucking with the Shroud."

Wrex's head tilted up, his eyes narrowing. "She what?"

"Yeah," she said. "It was a gamble, and she threw it right in. She figured we might try balancing the whole lot at once."

"Screw us over and get us walking where you want?" Wrex's mouth split into a mirthless grin. "This is the part where you tell us you told her to take her ideas somewhere else, right?"

"Less politely," Shepard said. She spread her hands on the table. "If we're going to do this, we need to get it right. Timing's going to be a bitch down there."

"We'll come down on the Hollows," Wrex said. "And move on from there. Short jump and a run to the Shroud."

"You reckon it'll go that easily?"

"I reckon we have to try," Wrex said gruffly. His gaze sharpened, pinning her. "Unless you're backing down now?"

Shepard grinned, and something eased inside her, under her skin, under the encasing weight of her armour. "Come on, Wrex. Don't you know that we never back down?"


	41. Reclamation

_First off a huge apology for dropping off the edge of the earth and not updating for so very long. Life and the end of the academic year got in the way to a rather big extent. As always, Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Forty-One: Reclamation **_

The arc of the flashlight cut the stifling press of the darkness, blurred with tumbling motes. The air was stale, Shepard noted, stale and unmoving and she wondered how long it'd been since anything had breathed it, this suffocating silence. She turned, the light moving with her, slicing across high pitted walls and sand, gritty where it was heaped up against pillars and the angles of archways.

"Clear?"

"Reading clear," Garrus answered. "So what was that, ten minutes until our exactingly laid plans got torn apart?"

"Fifteen. And I thought we were calling this a detour."

"Yeah," he responded drily. "I've always wanted to see the inside of a long-lost krogan city."

"You know," Vega said, his boots scraping through the dust. "I'm a little less worried about the long-lost krogan city and more worried about the giant fucking Reaper that's apparently parked its ass at the Shroud."

Shepard grinned lopsidedly. "Yeah. Giant fucking Reapers have a way of putting things in perspective."

"Nice, Commander."

"Okay. Moving forward. Steady as we can, but let's not assume we have these tunnels to ourselves."

She crossed the rough expanse of stone, following the narrow line of a walkway as it lifted up into shadow. Carvings ran the length of the walls, some of them sunken and missing chunks, figures unraveling across the surface. She saw slanting towers and dizzyingly tall archways, scribed in the stone and rubbed uneven by too many years. Spires and archways and always the krogan, figures stamped in the rock.

Ten terse minutes delved them deeper into the city, sometimes marching, sometimes wading through dust and broken bits of stone. Another ten and she motioned the others on faster, pushing down and then up huge, roughly hewn steps. She cleared the rise, the flashlight picking out gaping fractures, webbing through the floor. She eased around the first, jumped the next two and paused, her gaze snapping downwards.

The stone was _shaking_, she thought, whispering somewhere far below. She held up one hand and waited, shoulders stiff. Somewhere beneath, she felt it, the marrow-deep rumbling that meant the earth was shifting, buckling, _moving_.

Into her comm, she said, "Wrex. You feeling any tremors up there?"

"No. Road's uneven but staying put. You through yet?"

"Still in darkness down here."

"Pick up the pace," he said, thick with static. "We wait around for you too long, we'll get swarmed by Reaper troops."

"I hear you."

They'd crested another set of dust-cloaked steps when the floor trembled again. Shepard paused, scanning the stairs, the treacherous gaps in the rocks, the empty darkness above.

"Yeah," she said, when she saw Garrus, and the vaguely resigned way he was staring at the floor. "I reckon I'm thinking what you're thinking."

"Yeah," he said. "But last time that damn thresher maw was at least above the surface."

"We have all the luck, you know that." Shepard flicked her comm on again and added, "Wrex. Eve. What are the chances that we're about to be eaten by thresher maws down here?"

"Where you are," Wrex answered. "If you're that deep, and that damn close to the Shroud? If you're hearing a maw, I'd be betting you're hearing Kalros."

"Kalros?" Half-listening, she gestured the others forward again, weaving between toppled pillars, heading for a time-scabbed stone ramp. She heard Eve's voice cut across Wrex's, calm and modulated and something about old stories, the pathways around the Shroud, the pathways beneath the ancient city, caverns that belonged to a maw that might as well have been part of Tuchanka's stubborn, vicious deserts itself. "Say again? We're down here in the dark with the biggest fucking thresher maw this place has to offer?"

"The mother of all thresher maws, apparently, if you want to get technical."

"Stow it, Vakarian."

The stone ramp lifted higher, and higher again, until she was striding out into the sudden, shocking flood of the sunlight. Harsh and the air all full of grit against her mouth but _god_ it felt so much better, so much easier than the enclosing press of the darkness. She heard the surge and splash of running water, and followed Garrus' startled look to where it fell, tipping over old ledges, edged with white foam and clear. Bridges spanned deep crevasses, dipping sickeningly at the sides, stone blocks halfway to tumbling loose. Others arched higher, cutting the haze of the yellow sky. Trailing vines chased the lines of the stone, bristling thick and bright and green.

"Commander, we got incoming movement," Vega said briskly. "Closing slow."

"Find cover and be ready. Shout if you see a shadow you don't like the look of." She coiled herself behind the slant of a fallen slab and snapped, "Wrex, you got a mark on where we are?"

"You're close," he answered. "Move yourselves up north. Drop down into the sand and we can pick you up."

"What about the maw?"

"She's broken through the surface. She knows we're here."

"Wonderful," Shepard remarked wryly.

"Eve thinks we might have a shot at that Reaper."

"And what's that got to do with the maw?"

"We can talk about that later. You won't like it."

"As always you inspire me. Shepard out."

"Shepard," Garrus said, and she heard the whipcrack shot of his rifle. "Company."

Between heartbeats she had straightened up, leaning into the slab. Her gaze found the husks first as they ran, jostling against each other, winding between the pillars. The hulking heavy bastards she'd seen on Earth lumbered behind them, and the angular, ferocious things she knew had once been turians, and abruptly she wondered how much the Reapers might already know about the Shroud.

What it could do, what it had been designed to do.

_What it _would_ do_, she thought fiercely, her finger curling and easing on the trigger in that familiar, relentless rhythm. Two husks toppled, and her next shot scythed the feet out from under another one. Another followed, crumpling, and she turned her attention to the big lumbering thing paces behind, the gun welded to its arm already flaring. She rolled sidewards, uncoiling upright in time to level her rifle at it. Throat opened, it staggered, and the follow-up shot sent it sprawling.

"Shepard," Garrus said, clipped. "Left."

Instinctively, she twisted until her vision was filled with another of them, its jaws dropping wide, too wide, and its claws locked around a rifle. "Yeah," she said. "I see him."

* * *

><p>The hatch swung open, and Garrus vaulted out of the truck, one hand unthinkingly reaching for his rifle. As briskly, he scanned the terrain, all sand and grit and the spearing stone pillars that rose up, maybe two hundred metres of fast-marching distance away. Beyond, he could see the gleaming curves of the Reaper, scout, destroyer, whichever the hell it was, with its claws sunk into Tuchanka and its thoughts – <em>thoughts, orders instincts, whatever it was that churned through its circuits<em> – pinned on the Shroud.

"Pretty big," Shepard said mildly.

"And the closer you get, the bigger they seem," he replied, almost absently. "Lot of them back there."

"Yeah." She rubbed the back of one gloved hand across her forehead. "Seems like they certainly knew someone would want to use the Shroud. You know what really bothers me?"

"Can I give you a list?"

She grinned, and said, "Is it luck? Do they just swarm across the galaxy and dig their teeth in anywhere that seems good? Do they even _know_ about the genophage?"

"And if they do, how do they," Garrus said. "And suddenly we're talking smart Reapers."

"Sovereign sounded smart," she responded lightly. "_Sounded_."

"He had to. He had to convince us that he was right at the forefront of our destruction."

"Vanguard."

He nudged her idly. "The things you remember scare me sometimes."

"Very funny."

"So," he said, his gaze straying to the haze of the dust and the implacable bulk of the Reaper. "What if it's finished before we get there?"

_Poisoning the atmosphere_, Solus had said, curdling the _air_ and using the Shroud the way they meant to. Using the Shroud, Garrus thought, and part of him figured it was too damn close to be something as innocuous as coincidence.

"Then we blow it up for wasting our time."

"Yeah," he said. "Sorry. Don't know why I even asked."

"I was thinking it."

"And Eve's plan?"

"You know, since we're going to be coaxing a really big thresher maw to the place where we want to be, where there is also a Reaper, I'm not sure we should even be calling this a plan."

Garrus snorted. "Yeah, we're unlikely to find this one in the approved ground tactics manual."

"There's a manual?" she responded, and he heard the slight laugh under her words.

Footsteps struck the ground behind, and he turned in time to see Wrex, Vega and Liara trailing behind him.

"You ready?" Wrex asked.

"Yeah," Shepard said. Brusquely, she added, "It's going to get messy in there, so let's run through a few things now. Until we hit those maw hammers, the Reaper is not a priority target. Run, dodge or just plain fucking hide, but we are not chasing it down one-on-one."

"Kalros," Vega said, and shrugged. "We're sure about it?"

"She'll be there. She followed us. Liara," she added. "You'll stay with Eve and Mordin. Keep them covered and you'll stay right back until you hear that we've pushed through."

"Of course."

"Our problem, aside from the big bastard siphoning off the Shroud, is that we're doing two assignment runs in one," she said firmly.

Listening, Garrus could hear his own impatience in her voice, leashed and measured and he knew how she'd be wanting to be already out there, to be dragging them inches closer to the cure, to get something _done_ that didn't involve running away, didn't involve the ragged pieces of somebody else's plan coming apart around them.

"That means we pace ourselves," Shepard said. "We run ourselves to the wire getting the maw hammers up and working, and we'll stumble later. This is not going to be quick. Questions?"

"Asking anything else just means I have to think some more about what we're apparently going to do," Vega muttered.

"Okay," she said, and smiled, an edged, terse kind of smile. "Let's go play tag with a thresher maw."

* * *

><p>The stone shook, and Shepard righted herself long enough to swear before she was vaulting up the steps again, each rock slab huge and pitted. Another heaving leap took her higher, one hand grasping for the next step, her rifle jostling loose in its harness. Furiously, she kicked higher again, sharply aware of the clamour somewhere below.<p>

They'd come pouring down the steps, Reaper ground troops, and four grenades in brutal succession had done little to stem them. Skidding through grit and clambering between stone spars, they'd kept coming, clawing over each other, clawing over their own dead as they toppled. Hurtling and stampeding, and she could hear them beneath the rhythmic rattle of gunfire. The temple – _arena, enclosed circles of stone, all statues and carved serpent-shapes, whatever it was_ – was a damn bottleneck, ground terrain hemmed in on both sides by sloping steps and wind-winnowed sand, close on knee deep and treacherous where it spilled up against the walls.

Above her head, the air hummed. A fraction too late, she sank into a desperate crouch, teeth gritted while the Reaper's beam weapon sliced into the stone. She waited out another heartbeat while it swung back.

"Shepard," Garrus snapped, breathless, his voice uneven with distance and exertion.

"Okay," she answered. "Just making friends."

"Artimec Wing's on their way back in."

"Good. They can distract this bastard."

The beam curved up and across the edge of the steps and before she could think herself out of it, she wrenched herself up, heels sliding. Another frantic heave pulled her over the lip of the steps and onto flat stone. Somewhere below, she heard the rush and roar of combat. The low rumble of the beam weapon filled her head – _marrow-deep and how quickly she'd learned it, learned how it swallowed sound and thought and locked the breath up in her lungs – _and frantically she threw herself forward. She heard the buzz of her shields flickering before the surge of pressure flung her further. _The edge_, she knew, just the very edge of the damn beam, and it'd barely brushed her, and now she was on her knees and knocked close to winded.

She scrabbled for purchase, dragged herself upright, and gauged the distance to the maw hammer.

"Wrex," she snarled into her comm. "I'm looking at the maw hammer. Where are you?"

"Across from you," he answered.

"Okay. Raising the maw hammer."

She had to wrestle with it, had to grapple with the sweat inside her gloves and the way her hands kept glancing against it. Behind, she heard the thrum of the Reaper, the heavy thundering noise as it moved. The crackle of the beam weapon followed.

"Dropping mine," Wrex said gruffly.

"Right with you."

She wrangled it an inch higher, aware of the Reaper, the way the din of it seemed to wrap around her. The beam weapon arced down, scything across dry stone. Furiously, Shepard ignored it. Part of her mind registered the sudden growl of engines, and Garrus' half-startled shout of recognition, and finally, mercifully, the rattle of ship fire.

The maw hammer fell. She dropped flat beside it, her hands flattening against the ground. The sound – not even a sound, she thought, a vibration, a swell – jarred through the stone.

"Wrex," she snapped. "You hear that? Feel that?"

"Yeah. Keep yourself back. She's on her way."

The stone was trembling. In pulsing ripples, the stone was trembling, or breathing, or both. Clawing her way backwards, away from the lip of the steps, Shepard wondered how it'd feel on the ground, all those metres below, with the maw close to the surface, with the maw on its way to the Reaper.

"Garrus," she said. "Get clear. You and Vega. Get yourselves clear."

"On our way," he answered, his voice as uneven as hers had been.

Her shoulders were flat against the low stone wall when she heard it, the roar and rush of the maw as it sheared through broken rock and up and out into empty air. Its heaving coils rose and fell as it plunged through the temple. Relentless, the maw surged on, breaching the sand again and again. Halfway to elation, Shepard stared as it surfaced again.

The Reaper's beam weapon sliced down. Still moving, the maw twisted, the heavy length of it rolling into the sand. As fast, its coils surged up and out and locked around the Reaper's hull. The maw tipped sideways and down, the punishing weight of it hauling the Reaper along with it. Hands locked over the edge of the wall, Shepard watched as it fought the Reaper under the surface, the coils lashing and tightening.

She watched until the sand settled, the Reaper drowned somewhere beneath.

"Holy shit," she said, eventually, the breath leaving her chest in a shuddering rush. "That look as terrifying from down there?"

"Let's see," Garrus answered. "There was that part where the maw came bolting past us. So, yeah."

"Anything else I need to know?"

"Got shot by a Reaper."

"Keep bragging, Vega."

"Not something that happens every day," he protested.

"The way the galaxy's going at the moment? Consider that practice." She pushed away from the wall. "Okay. Coming down."

She picked her way back down the high stone steps, aware of the twinging ache that ran between her shoulders. One awkward tumble too many, she supposed, or else when that thing that had once been a turian had side-swiped her hard into the wall.

She discovered Wrex at the base of the steps, Garrus and Vega beside him, all of them filthy with sand and grit.

"Nice view?" Garrus asked, drily.

"Yeah, though not one I necessarily want to repeat." She paused long enough to scrub one hand across the back of her neck, the muscles there still stiff with tension. "Wrex, you ready to get this finished?"

His gaze pinned her, shrewd and raking. "You're really asking that?"

* * *

><p>Tuchanka was dry and barren and too damn dusty, Garrus considered, but at least the place was warm. He shifted the weight of his rifle again and tried to stop himself from looking at the Shroud again, at the thin needle of metal and glass where it rose up into the grey bowl of the sky.<p>

She'd been gone seven minutes, the last he'd checked, and the seconds were crawling. She'd ordered Solus following behind her, and the rest of them to wait, eyes on the horizon and watching for movement.

The Shroud was already wreathed in smoke, its walls smudged dark. Garrus had listened, minutes ago, while Solus had rattled off something about one last sample from Eve and how he'd been wondering if the original strain might still be sitting there in the ground-level lab complex. The salarian's words lingered, whipcrack fast, how the Shroud might well have absorbed the shattering impact of the maw and her prey, how he couldn't be sure how the tech systems inside might be holding, how he couldn't be sure what he'd find, what he might be able to piece together.

Despite himself, Garrus' thoughts flitted to the maw again, to the way she'd come thundering through the temple, the whole dizzying size of her coiling and looping through sand and broken stone as if it was air. The thudding sound of her, of the Reaper, of them both as they'd shuddered under the sand.

"Anything?" Vega muttered.

"Clear." He turned slightly, almost glad of the distraction. "Don't tell me you _want _to make more Reaper friends?"

"Right now? Give me something to do."

"I know what you mean."

"You ever see a thresher maw up close before?"

"Yeah," he answered, absently. "Big one. Not as big as Kalros."

Head still tilted towards the open stretches of sand, Vega said, "Story in that?"

"You remember Grunt?"

"Your enthusiastic krogan commando buddy."

Garrus laughed. "Him. He went through an initiation ritual down here which ended up involving us running around like hell after a maw. Took it down eventually."

"Right," Vega said. "I'm just going to go with _hey, krogan, crazy, best not ask._"

Garrus scanned the horizon again, his gaze dipping between sloping dunes and past the ragged jut of rocks. The wind howled out here, slicing brisk and loud and turning every surveying motion into a fight with the roar of it. Beneath his feet, he felt it, the sand shifting.

"You feeling that?"

"Yeah," Vega replied. "Another maw? The _same_ maw?"

He waited through another listening moment, head turned away from the scream of the wind. "Feels different," Garrus said brusquely. "The Shroud. Let's move."

The sand clung to his boots until he cleared the low rise. Four more strides had him through and staring at the Shroud, at the flames that plumed through its walls, the glass splitting. For half a heartbeat he halted, automatically noting the details, the spread of the fire thick at the top of the tower, the air there blurred with heat. It was pulling itself apart, he saw, its metal struts buckling beneath the flames.

"Shepard," Garrus snarled. "Shepard? You reading me? You hear me?"

"Okay," she answered, breathing too hard. "I'm okay. Nearly to you."

Briskly, he scrutinized the smoke until he saw her, hauling herself around the edge of the wall. She was wrung through, and he could see it in the way she was walking, her hands slipping too fast against the stone, the almost clumsy way she yanked her helmet off.

"Hey," he said, softly, as if it hadn't been a bare handful of minutes since he'd seen her stride into the Shroud. "You okay?"

"Mordin's dead."

"I'm sorry," he said. _Words_, he thought, words that you had to say, words to say to fill the silence, and he hoped she'd know what he meant.

"He went up. Into the tower. He reckons we'll see the dispersal if it worked."

"He had to go up?"

"He had to," Shepard said heavily. She swiped at the sweat that lined her forehead. "Come on. Let's go tell Wrex it might've worked."

"Shepard."

"I'll be okay," she said, gentler. "You see anything?"

"Sand and dust and nothing else."

He looked past her, at the roiling smoke, and something else – _probably half in his fucking mind, given the day and the Reaper and the way they'd been running for hours - _ something else above the point of the tower. Something soft and maybe like rain and pattering through the smoke, and when he tipped his head back, he saw the high, spreading arcs of it.

"You reckon that's it?"

"Yeah," she said, eventually, as if she'd been hunting for the right words. Her gaze followed his, marveling. "I think that's it."

Later in the truck, she stayed quiet, leaning into his shoulder, and he could smell the exhaustion on her, sweat and battered armour and the acrid rasp of the sand. At the Hollows, Garrus swung himself onto the ground and found himself staring up at the sky again, eyes narrowing when he tried to see it, whatever Solus had done.

What he had done to the air itself and what it would do for the krogan.

"Hey," Wrex said gruffly. "We'll have combat units on their way to Palaven soon as they're able."

"Wasn't going to ask," Shepard said. "Well, maybe."

He snorted. "Right."

"You'll be okay?"

"Yes," Eve answered, her voice burred rough. "We will. You saw the city, Commander. Not the tunnels. The city where things still grow."

Garrus remembered the rich shining arches of leaves, tumbling through deep canyons. The air had tasted different there, something else under the choking cling of dust and broken stone, something fresh and alive and _green_.

"Yes," Shepard said. "I did."

"Then you have seen that we might rebuild. That we can make this place great again. Perhaps beautiful." Eve's gaze sharpened. "Not today, but one day."

"Shepard," Wrex said. "Just wanted to – well, thank you. For standing with us. Standing beside us."

"Running around getting shot at is what we do best." Her grin softened. "You're welcome."

Wrex clapped her across the shoulder. "Let me know how it goes with saving the rest of the galaxy."

"Your confidence overwhelms me. So," she added. "Stupid question. How will we actually know if the cure's worked?"

Wrex laughed. "I'll give you all the detail you want."

"No. No, thank you. Sometimes I am happy living in ignorance."

* * *

><p>The shuttle settled onto the floor of the landing bay with practiced ease. Garrus waited, half-listening to the fading hiss of the engines. He trailed Shepard out and down, vaguely aware of Vega behind him, saying something to Liara about the heat and the maw. He was reaching for the keypad beside the door when Joker's voice crackled over the comm.<p>

"You all breathing down there?"

"Still standing," Shepard answered. "What have we missed and am I going to like it?"

"You're not," Joker said ruefully. "I've got Hackett waiting for you on the comm."

"Tell him I'm taking a nap. Details?"

"Fleet info and something about something he wants you to do."

"That clarifies so much." She sighed. "Tell him I'll take it in the briefing room, two minutes."

"Sure, Commander."

Shepard glanced up at him, tired and resigned beneath the sweat-damp whorls of her hair. "I'll find you later?"

"Of course."

She caught the back of his wrist, squeezing hard. "You always know the right thing to say."

"You're just easy to please," he responded, and was rewarded when she laughed.

"Still looking for the compliment in that one," she flung over her shoulder at him.

They'd talk it through – they'd need to, he thought - and he could see it in her face, Tuchanka and the Shroud and Solus. He thought of Menae, and how he'd been yanked away from debriefing to go back out and up on the surface again, whether he'd wanted to or otherwise – _often he had, often he'd demanded it, snarled for it –_ and how sometimes he'd come back down with the knowledge of it all simmering, and nowhere to piece it all together.

Hackett snapping his fingers for her attention and he knew why, knew how it worked, knew how assignments were farmed out when combat zones were broadened. Ship spread, location, speed, too many finicky variables and he knew damn well that it was numbers and resources, plain and brutal.

He wove his way up to the loft deck and into their quarters and peeled his armour off piece by filthy piece. He went over most of it, smoothing out nicks and dents and that one long ugly scrape that crossed one of the shoulder pieces. He ducked into the shower afterwards, tipping his head into the scalding heat of the spray until he could taste nothing but the water.

Later, he discovered Primarch Victus sitting at his workstation, his gaze locked on the screen, and his hands busy at the keyboard.

"Vakarian, good," the Primarch said, without looking up. "You want to give me a brief run-down?"

He obeyed, listening to himself as the words fell into place, simple and brisk and absurd at the same time. The details he could recall, the furious scrappy pace of it on the ground, Vega half-veiled in the dust, Liara shielding Eve, Shepard somewhere up top and Reaper troops lumbering through the sand. The maw, and how she'd come bursting up through the ground and down again and taken the Reaper with her.

"We cleared the area around the Shroud, sir, but I'd be betting that the Reapers won't be leaving the planet alone."

"Understandable." Victus leaned back in his chair. "That was good work today."

"Thank you, sir."

"I've already received a preliminary outline from Wrex." Victus' expression shifted slightly, almost wry. "You think he'll follow through?"

"I do," Garrus said immediately. "He said he'll get krogan troops on Palaven if we get the cure to the Shroud."

"And what about any period of transition? Even if Solus' assumptions were correct, this is not going to change anything soon."

"I know. And Wrex knows. What he wanted was the start of it."

Victus nodded. "Alright, I'm prepared to go with your assessment. I'll deal with krogan support directly once I'm back with Palaven Command."

Garrus hesitated, his tongue dragging against the back of his teeth. "What's your plan for Palaven?"

"I won't know until I'm there." As sharply, Victus exhaled, his shoulders sinking. "I'm getting reports in, but they change by the hour."

"By the minute."

"Hah. Yes." Victus' eyes narrowed before he added, "If it works – if it even begins to work – that extra troop presence might give us the breathing space we need. Push the Reapers back and keep pushing."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

"No. Thank you, Vakarian."

He nodded, and five minutes later he'd taken himself through the CIC and down, into the half-deserted mess hall. He found Joker sitting stiffly at the small table in the corner, Liara seated beside him. Vega was poised across, his gaze on a half-full mug.

"Hey, Garrus." Joker's head lifted. "Guess all we need now is a giant gun that shoots thresher maws."

"Funny."

"Only stops being funny when you stop smiling."

"I'm not smiling."

"You're hiding it, desperately."

He tugged a chair out and sat. "Aren't you meant to be welded to that seat in the cockpit?"

"If I'm really good, I get to get up and do other stuff sometimes." Joker crossed his arms on the table. "I heard about Mordin. I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Garrus said heavily. "It worked, I guess. It just – yeah. Quiet up here?"

"Yeah. Mostly I was just wondering just who the hell thought it was a good idea to point the maw at the Reaper."

"Still can't believe that worked," Vega muttered.

"You'll get used to it."

"Getting there," Vega said. He reached for the mug again.

The silence returned, that exhausted wordlessness that Garrus knew meant they were all worn through, the day too long and too frantic and all you could do was wait it out, until the jolt of it bled away. Somewhere behind, he heard footsteps, light and measured. He turned in time to see Shepard, clad in neatly fastened fatigues, her hair glossy under the spill of the lights.

"Hey." She swung a chair out beside him, sitting close enough that he could smell clean skin and soap. "And here I thought I was the crazy one with too much rolling around in my head."

"You're still the crazy one," Garrus said mildly.

"Lovely," she retorted, and he saw the strain at the corners of her eyes ease slightly. "You want the errand list from Alliance HQ now or later?"

Joker snorted. "How much?"

"We'll get through it. Hackett's problem is Cerberus, and where they keep sticking their necks up. If we're in the area, we hit back at them."

"Nice," Joker muttered.

"Well," she said. "We always knew they'd never stay quiet."

"I was hoping."

"He say anything about Tuchanka?" Garrus asked.

"Briefly, we did well. Not so briefly, full report, ASAP."

"Logbooks and shit," Vega remarked. "Remind me to never want to get promoted."

"Shepard," Liara said. "You're alright?"

"Yeah," she answered, the word half a sigh. "I think so."

"You know," Garrus said, his gaze on Shepard's hands where they were locked a little too rigid over the edge of the table. "However it works out, Mordin really kicked history in the teeth today."

"Yeah," she said, softer. "That's certainly something."


	42. Paths

_Just a note to say that this story is still ongoing, and now that a few post-Christmas life things have been settled, I'm hoping to get back into regular updates. So I do apologise for that, and always a big thank you to everyone who's still adding this to favourites/alerts. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Forty-Two: Paths**_

He saw greyness, and briefly wondered if his eyes were even open yet. There had been dreams, he was almost certain, dreams and bits and pieces that were memories. The doctor, from her last drop-in, her voice brisk and clipped and incisive as always. He tried to grasp at it, whether she had already been here today, or whether he was remembering it slightly wrong again.

His hands clenched in the white sheets, crisp and cleanly folded. His thoughts swam again, uselessly. He waited while the unhelpful blur of his vision finally resolved into the lines of the wall and the desk on the other side and the array of blinking machines that tagged his pulse and his breathing and every awkward motion he tried to make.

It had been days – too many, and he had counted every one of them that he could remember – since Mars, and _still_ each morning was like this, clumsy and slow.

_Through narrowed eyes he saw the flat grey of the ceiling, and the curve of Liara's shoulder, and he could hear someone else pacing, too close, each step wincingly loud. He moved his mouth and Liara shook her head. _

_ "No. Kaidan, it's alright. We're going to the Citadel. You'll be alright." _

_ He fought through the ragged gaps in his thoughts. He remembered the shuttle, spinning down too close and too fast. He remembered the Cerberus scientist, doctor Eva something, Liara snapping out her name, and how she had bolted ahead of Shepard, too fast and too agile. _

_ He remembered the scientist standing up, impossibly, wrapped in flame and her skin crackling away from whatever was underneath, all blackened metal and the punishing grip of her hands at his throat. The sudden swell of darkness and the baffling gulf in his thoughts. _

He flipped the sheets down, his breathing easing. _Patience,_ he thought, he needed stillness and patience and carefully he willed each prickling nerve steady. It had been the hours, the doctor'd said, the awful stopgap hours when he had been supine in the _Normandy_ with Liara doing anything and everything she could with handfuls of medi-gel and hope. The stifling, shocking pressure around his neck and the way his helmet had buckled and how he had _heard_ it as it had given way.

As carefully, he lowered his feet onto the floor and pushed himself upright. He stood, teeth gritted through the few lurching seconds of dizziness. He made it across the cool white floor to the locker, one hand braced hard against the wall while he fumbled around for a clean shirt. Kaidan sat at the vidscreen next, as he had every morning – _morning, afternoon, whenever he clawed himself up out of the darkness that had its hooks under his skin_ - and cycled through the news channels.

Nothing new, and part of him wondered why he expected any different. Colony names that might have been the same as yesterday's reports, refugee numbers that he suspected were massaged down, and the insistence that the Citadel was fine, safe, the centre of everything, _holding_. Afterwards, he scrolled through his messages, as useless, as bland. Gaps of days that stretched into weeks and he flicked through them until he found himself staring at Admiral Hackett's frantic order, to cut losses on Earth and retreat, pull back, to swallow pride along with defeat and run.

_No_, he thought, and leaned back from the screen. Not a defeat if it might be the only way to square up some kind of survival later.

He thought of the day again, _that_ day, the recollection of it swallowing the order of his thoughts. The morning had been bland, he remembered, and wondered why that detail stuck, knifing, the sky above HQ grey and rippling with cloud. Orders had called him in to present to the defense committee, and afterwards, he'd walked into Shepard and said something and even now he was not quite sure how long it had taken, after that. Long enough to stop and stand and talk with Lieutenant Vega, swapping introductions and brief words. Long enough to hear how the thrum of conversation around them was changing, turning terse and harried.

Long enough to suddenly, fiercely, wish he'd kept his armour strapped on before the floor tilted and all he could taste was heat.

_Outside, the air was worse, scorched, painful when he gulped it down. Overhead the sky was thick with smoke and the dark, glossy shapes of the Reapers as they moved, clawed legs unfurling as they sank into the ground. Somewhere nearby, another landed, the impact of it nearly throwing him off his feet. _

_His hands were bare and sweat-streaked and wrapped around a rifle, the stock pulled tight against his shoulder. He was too aware of the drag of his fatigues, and the way he was already aching from how he'd hit the floor when a Reaper ship had torn its way through Alliance HQ. _

_Beside him, Lieutenant Vega gestured to a shadowed avenue winding between two buildings, thick with rubble and the flaming shells of two shuttles. "There?"_

"_Yeah," Kaidan answered. "Quickly."_

_They'd need to get higher, he thought, higher and start shouting into comms and work out just who might be still standing, in the air or on the ground. _

_It was tortuous, picking a path through the avenue and up, through streets choked with debris. He could smell the raw stink of the dead, and too close, he was sure he heard the rapid thud of footsteps. As quickly, husks wheeled around the corner ahead, their feet smacking hard against the ground and their gaping, empty faces tilting up. _

_He hurled a surge of blue energy at them, knocking two flat and sending a third pinwheeling into the wall. Vega flanked him, the rattle of his first volley tipping the other two over. As cautiously, they cleared the rise. Kaidan paused, the slow thrum of his biotics flaring. He motioned Vega towards the slant of a crumpled wall, the stone pitted black and still warm. _

_Kaidan crouched, his gaze flicking up to the rippling pewter sky above. He noted too many ships already wrapped in flame, toppling against each other, others darting in between, some arcing madly past the vast bulk of the Reapers. He swallowed, his tongue scraping dry against the inside of his mouth. _

"_Plan?" Vega asked. _

"_Find someone else to talk to." He snapped his comm unit on, his fingers slipping slightly. "This is Major Alenko. We're barely two clicks north of Alliance HQ. Anyone hearing me?" _

_He tried again, and again, hearing the static rustling in response. _

"_Guess everyone's busy," Vega muttered. "Want to make a run further?" _

"_We still clear?"_

"_Looking clear." _

"_Give me a minute." _

_For a brief, wrenching moment he floundered through welling panic. Once more he shouted into the comm unit, name and location and request. Somewhere beneath his feet, he could feel the shuddering sound of what he knew had to be a Reaper, another one, however many there were, too many of them and all of them pulling the city apart. _

_Overhead, the roar of a turning ship filled the sky. The static rose and hissed and resolved into someone's voice._

"…Normandy_, hearing you. Go ahead."_

"Normandy,_" Kaidan repeated, marveling. "Joker?"_

"_Yeah. Who've you got?"_

"_I'm on the ground with Lieutenant Vega. Do you have a lock on our position?"_

"_We see you," Joker said tersely. "We'll swing around and pick you up. Keep yourselves clear."_

"_Will do."_

_He waited, shoulders rigid. He looked up, trying to see through the roiling smoke for the familiar shape of the ship. _

"_Kaidan?" Joker's voice again, harried and crackling. _

"_Still here."_

"_Where's Shepard? You see her?"_

"_I don't know," he said, the words leaden. "Don't know. HQ got torn apart. She could be anywhere." _

"_Okay," Joker said heavily. "Coming in. Look up and you'll see us." _

_Through the smoke he saw it, the sleek lines of the _Normandy_ as she sank, all graceful, easy movement, the nosecone dipping slightly until she hovered. Part of his thoughts noted how much bigger she was, and briefly he wondered if he'd still know his way through the tangle of corridors inside. _

_He had known – he'd read it, the report, staring at the dry stark details of what he'd known was a Cerberus ship, shining white and black and stamped with Cerberus signs and only carrying the right name because Cerberus had dragged Shepard in. _This_, he thought, this was different, the ship glossy after however many months drydocked and worked over, the colours all changed again. _

"_Can't hold here long," Joker said. _

"_On our way." _

_Motioning Vega ahead of him, he cleared the rise. Somewhere behind, he heard the sliding sound of footsteps, dragging through loose stone, kicking past crumpled metal. As briskly, he crossed the last of the distance and then he was hurling himself up, clawing onto the ramp and further in, his boots skidding. _

"_Vega?"_

"_Good," the lieutenant snapped. _

"_We're in." _

"_Copy," Joker answered. _

_Kaidan dragged himself upright by the time the ramp snicked shut. He was sweat-soaked, he realised, his fatigues clinging to his shoulders. He felt the surge of the engines and desperately, he tried to sort through his thoughts. _

_Reapers, and they were digging through the city while he stood here, his hands flat against one of the workbenches, the rifle hanging heavy and unwieldy against his hip. _

"_Move up to the CIC," Joker said. "Our comm specialist will walk you through what we know."_

_Vega grinned crookedly, his face grimy beneath sweat and dirt and the clinging shadows of the day. "And that is?"_

"_About an inch more than nothing." _

"_Plan?" Kaidan asked, halfway to the elevator. _

"_We're finding Shepard. Then we can talk about a plan." _

Kaidan shoved himself away from the screen. He remembered how he'd stumbled his way up through to the CIC, the vicious knowledge of it – _Reapers, Earth, and they'd known, they'd known since Virmire_ – robbing his mind of clarity. How he'd heard the hiss and click of the comm unit again, and then Anderson's voice, harried and frantic and something about the harbour.

Methodically, he silenced the furious whirl of his thoughts. The day would bring another round from the doctor, he knew, and another stack of examinations, and another warning to keep the biotics hushed up. He'd walk out and into the Citadel wards later, he supposed, slowly and cautiously, since there was little else to do except sit here in the circling mire of his own thoughts.

On the edge of the desk, the comm button buzzed.

He reached for it and answered, "Alenko."

"Major. You're up?"

Udina, he realised. _Councilor _Udina, since Earth, and his voice was clipped and impatient. "Yes," he said, slightly wary. "What can I do for you, Councilor?"

"There is something we need to discuss."

"Shall I come up to your office?"

"Don't bother," Udina replied crisply. "I'll be there within the hour."

* * *

><p>Joker glared at the cooling dregs in his mug for a long moment. Automatically, without looking up, he noted the slow slew of the ship as she straightened around, the kick of the engines as they hiked up. "Clear in the landing bay?"<p>

"Clear," Shepard answered brusquely. "Get us going when you're ready."

"On our way already."

He leaned back in the chair, his gaze finding the sliding data on the screens and the blur of the darkness beyond them. Some backwards no-name sector of space, he knew, and they'd spent too many tiresome hours here, the ground team hopping down to some stifling concrete jungle of a colony to chase Cerberus troops around. Briskly, he slapped the mug down and turned his attention the glowing keyboard. He tapped in three tiny adjustments, his fingers shifting with practiced ease.

Six minutes later he heard armoured footsteps against the companionway, measured and deceptively light. He shifted the chair slightly and said, "Hey, Garrus. How'd it go?"

"Good," the turian answered. He paused, shrugged, and amended, "Well, as good as it was going to. Civilians on the ground, running scared."

"Getting in the way?" Joker said, more waspishly than he'd meant to.

Mildly, Garrus said, "Just makes it more complicated. You get why they're scared, but you can't always get them to understand."

Joker scrubbed roughly at the back of his cap. "Sorry."

"It's okay. We got it done." Garrus' head tipped slightly to one side. "EDI's fine. Just running through a debrief with Shepard."

Joker exhaled sharply. "Okay, good. I mean, thanks for saying."

She'd explained it two days ago, clipped and precise and he'd understood, understood why she wanted to get off the ship, why he shouldn't worry, because she knew her way round her own damn circuits, and still, stupidly, he'd worried. He'd sat restless in his seat since the shuttle had touched down, remembering how she'd said it, that her platform's capabilities clearly encompassed combat, and stealth, and how she was curious as to how _this body_ might perform.

He'd bitten back what he'd really wanted to retort and nodded.

"_Hey, yeah. If you want to, then, yeah. Go for it."_

"_I have spoken to Commander Shepard. She is willing to let me test this body's capabilities." _

"_Great." _

"In fact," Garrus added. "I think she probably got shot at less than I did."

"You're a bigger target."

"Fair point."

He swiveled the chair round properly, tilting his head back so he could see the turian's face, all severe angles. "So what did you make of Cerberus and their latest attempt to piss us off?"

"That was the odd part," Garrus answered. He leaned back against the side of the co-pilot's chair. "Hackett's original report suggested they were herding civilians, targeting them."

"_Human_ civilians?"

Garrus' teeth flashed in something close to a brief smile. "Yeah. And yeah, it was weird. Not like them at all."

"Damn. And we spent months running around pretending to be them."

"Pretending to be working with them."

"There's a difference?" Joker sighed. "Yeah. There's a difference."

"You see anyone else who was happy to stand up and run after the Collectors all the way out to the ass-end of space and back?"

Joker smiled. "No, I guess not. And I'm not sure I'd say _happy_."

"We can call it duty if it makes you feel better."

"It does. A little."

Garrus' gaze sharpened, raking over him. "You okay?"

"Fine," he said. "Tired."

"I get that. You're always welcome to come lose a hand of cards to me some time."

"Sounds like a challenge. Remind me some day when I don't have to dodge Reaper signals."

"Is it random?" Garrus asked. "The Reapers, I mean. Their patterns."

"Don't know," he answered honestly. "Sometimes I think, no, absolutely not. Planned to within an inch of whatever the hell it is they're up to. They circled Earth and cut us off in _hours_, and not very many hours at that, and I'd swear they damn well chased the _Normandy_ to Mars."

"But?"

Joker pushed back the urge to grin at the studied, slightly determined tone in the turian's voice. Pushing towards angles and queries and briefly he remembered how it'd been years ago, the turian in the briefing room and picking through every line and unanswered question in the info they'd gathered on Saren. Stone-skulled obstinacy, he'd thought at the time, but he was damned if he'd ever confess that sometimes it worked.

"But we're moving all over the place. Half the time it's got to be random. They're attacking everything they can, not just us."

"Not sure if that makes me feel better or not," Garrus muttered.

"You were thinking of what Harbinger said. Or what all those – whatever – you know, what they did with the Collectors."

"Yeah." Garrus shrugged. "That and getting up too close with Sovereign, and then the damn Reaper scout at the Shroud and suddenly I'm seeing personally vindictive Reapers everywhere."

"You and the rest of the galaxy."

"Well," Garrus said wryly, and straightened away from the co-pilot's chair. "When you put it like that."

* * *

><p>Four days later, Garrus stepped into their quarters, aware of the heavy encasing press of his armour and the stinging burn of exertion under it. A brief drop-off onto some snow-ridden, forsaken corner of Noveria had turned into a fifteen-hour stand-off with Cerberus troops, and more than once, he'd silently cursed whatever determination it was that pushed the Cerberus soldiers on, wave after wave of them. Sourly, he'd concluded that obligation had severe downsides when it entailed being holed up in a wind-raked station while every inching step outside got you nothing more helpful than shields buzzing out and the rattle of gunfire too close overhead.<p>

Trailing him, Shepard keyed the door closed. "Hey," she said, the word half stifled by a yawn. "You warmed up yet?"

"I'll live."

Gently, she nudged him. "Told you you could stay on the ship."

"Yeah, yeah. And pass up the opportunity to complain about Cerberus _and_ the cold?"

"Still," Shepard remarked. "No rachni."

He unslung his rifle onto the workbench. "After Utukku, that's hardly a guarantee any more, packed full of Reaper tech or otherwise."

"True. Though I am at least hoping the latter will stick to their promise this time and not try and eat, kill or otherwise harm us."

He straightened up in time to see her regarding him, not censuring. "What is it?"

"You," she answered softly. "You know, you don't have to run your ass into the ground all the time."

"Like I have anything better to do." He peeled his gloves off, the thick undersides still smelling of the sharp, glacial air they'd spent the day wrapped up in. "It's frustrating, I guess. It doesn't make sense, but sometimes, when we spend so long chasing Cerberus, I keep wondering whether we're missing something really important that the Reapers are cooking up somewhere."

"That does make sense." She flipped her helmet over, her fingers running under the edges, checking for scrapes or nicks or the needling persistence of pressure damage. "I suppose it would make it easier if the Reapers just sent us a nice, sparkly, detailed map with their intentions clearly spelled out."

"Maybe we should file a request," Garrus said drily.

"Very funny."

He reached for the catches on her armour, shoulder pieces and arm coverings first, until he could feel the heat of her beneath. She did the same for him, reaching up so she could start at his neck until she hauled him across the room and into the shower.

It was slow and slightly clumsy, the two of them stumbling against each other under the spray until Shepard spluttered. He laughed and guided her back out, dripping and half draped in a towel and as indolently, they ended up tangled on the couch. She rolled above him, her damp hands trailing across his chest, tracing the dips and ridges there, the softer patches above. He cupped her hips and saw her answering smile, flushed and warm and wanting. Tenderly, he eased into her, and the shuddering hitch of her breath against his mouth made him ache.

Afterwards, she flopped full-length against him, her head buried under his chin and her hands wrapped around one of his. "Not moving," she mumbled.

"Never?"

"Eventually. Maybe."

He bit back the urge to laugh. As carefully, he straightened up slightly, carrying her with him. She muttered something about treachery and curled herself around him instead. Minutes later she was asleep, or very close to it, the tense lines in her face loosening, and the rhythm of her breathing relaxing. He'd felt it in her on Tuchanka, this marrow-deep exhaustion that she hadn't quite shaken off, that she probably hadn't shaken off since Earth.

_Hell_, he thought. _He'd_ barely shaken it off since Palaven.

Garrus stayed there, moving once, leaning over her slightly so that he could scoop up one of the datapads he'd left on the table. He tipped the flat of it against her shoulder and flicked it on, his gaze finding Primarch Victus' update.

Drydock ships to be kicked into gear and shined up and sent off to Hackett's fleets, and communication lists between Palaven Command and a handful of incoming krogan vessels. Transmissions between Menae and Palaven were still sketchy, he read, luck of the day and the distance and whether the Reapers circling the planet had their attention fixed and pinned or otherwise. Pushing forward and back at the same time, he thought, and somehow he made himself read through the rest of it, because he'd sworn five times over to the Primarch that he'd keep at it, because he had to.

He lasted another thirty minutes before he was too aware of Shepard's sprawled, languid weight across his lap, her head pillowed on the inside of his thigh. Very gently, Garrus touched the back of her neck, his fingers skimming across clean skin and into the spiky mess of her hair. She stirred, arching into his palm.

"Sorry," Shepard muttered. "Fell asleep on you?"

"Yeah," he answered.

"You weren't doing anything important?"

"Reading through a report."

"The report that I think is on my back right now?"

"Yeah."

"That's so romantic."

"I thought so."

She grinned, lopsided and drowsy. "You're finished?"

"Getting there," he said, and threw the datapad back onto the table.

"I'm not taking the blame for any slacking off here."

"Not even if I give you a really good reason to?"

"Well," she said, and shifted over and up so that she had her hands flat on his shoulders. "Maybe if it's _really_ good."

He had time to laugh before she'd yanked him down beside her, one leg up over his hips and one hand busy tracing distracting circles under his fringe and against the back of his neck. The unhurried, easy pleasure of it made his stomach tighten, how she took what seemed like so long to map out the angles of his face, markings and scars and all. The way her lips followed her fingers until he could taste her at the corners of his mouth, lingering. He traced the line of her shoulder and then in, under the dip of her collarbone.

"I just," he said, and the words ran dry. "Hell. I'm sorry. Not making any sense. You know what's insane?"

"Take your pick," she suggested archly. "Start with the Reapers and then work down."

"Very funny." He cupped her hands between his, her fingers sliding between his, softer on the inside and strong. "I know everything's gone to hell – still going to hell. But, ah. This feels good. You and me, I mean."

He heard the way her breathing caught, the sound barely-there. "Yeah," she said. "It does."

"I guess," he said, and weighed the words. "I guess I saw that tower fall apart on Tuchanka and well, you start thinking. It's easy to push it all to the back of your head and then it happens to someone on your ship. Well, _your_ ship."

Something softened in her face, in the way her eyes were on his, dark and thoughtful, and he knew she'd read straight through him, careful words and mild tone be damned.

"Yeah," she answered. "I understand. I do. And sometimes saying it through is the only thing that makes sense."

"Even if it sounded so much smoother in my head?"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"I'm wounded," he said wryly.

"You'll live."

Shepard moved first, her hands clasping his waist and dipping lower, teasingly. His thoughts went helplessly, wonderfully blank. He buried his face against the side of her neck, against the warmth there that smelled of them both, soap and skin and sweat. His tongue found the fluttering place where her pulse leaped.

"You know," she said, and he felt her laughing, her whole frame shaking with it. "That's somewhat unfair."

"Only somewhat? That sounds like a challenge."

* * *

><p>The tail end of the redeye watch brought a garbled distress call. Shepard jolted out of sleep in time to hear Joker fielding it through to their quarters, EDI already picking her way through it. Listening to the bare-bones detail, she fastened her armour on, groused her way through lukewarm coffee, and briefly wished whoever the hell was in trouble could've left her an extra hour or two of downtime for civility's sake.<p>

Cerberus, Shepard thought an hour later, needed to stop digging fingers and interests into every fucking tiny corner of the galaxy, and _she_ needed to know just how the hell Jack had managed to latch herself onto the Alliance as an instructor.

"Vega," she snapped into her comm. "Tell me what you see down there."

"Same as before," he answered, half-blurred by static. "We got a room full of the bastards, and too much space to run around in."

"Okay. You take front, EDI with you. Moving slow and careful. Don't outpace yourselves. Liara?"

"Shepard?"

"I want you covering those kids, you hear me?"

"All the way to the shuttles," Liara answered fiercely.

"Good." She twisted slightly, eying the open stretch of white corridor. "Got a guess at our chances?"

Beside her, Garrus shrugged. "The way they've been pouring around the corners? Give us ten feet before we get swamped."

"Damn. You're cranky when you get woken up early."

He laughed, a clipped, terse sound. "You and me both."

"Fair point." She waited an instant longer, taking in the low thrum of noise, somewhere below, and the deceptive silence of the corridor ahead. Sanders had called the students – _they _were_ kids, Shepard thought, viciously, and they'd been minutes away from being hauled off by Cerberus_ – away and through to the main hall and yet she couldn't quite quell the needling uncertainty of it.

"Okay," she said. "I'll move up first. Time your movement, and time your shots twice as sharp."

"Got you," Garrus answered.

Close walls and cramped ceilings made for wretched, too-quick decisions, and she heard her own thoughts in his voice, that the Cerberus troops they'd already run into had been hurtling as if they had fire behind them. _What was here_, she wondered, what was here or who was here that made it so damn important to the Illusive Man and whatever it was he'd vowed he was planning. She remembered his words on Mars, glacial and measured and startlingly as brisk as an afterthought.

_"I'm improving them." _

Six crouched steps took her to the sweep of the corner, and another three rolled her past. A rattle of gunfire followed, fierce and deafening, burrowing into the floor behind her heels as she kicked clear and past the rise of a pillar.

"Shepard," Garrus said, almost wearily. "I hear what I think I just heard?"

"Yes, yes, you did. They have a nice shiny turret out there."

"Lovely."

She bit back a grin and gauged the distance from the pillar. Pale walls, she noticed, all open space and an arched chamber that would be a bitch to get themselves stranded in. "I got it."

The arcing thump of a grenade half toppled the turret, the barrel of it still spitting bullets, juddering wildly. A follow-up volley sent it tipping over, all coils of thick smoke and a mess of sparks. She registered running footfalls next, and had time enough to settle her shoulder against one side of the pillar before she saw the first of them, white-armoured and moving fast.

Her first round sliced the feet out from under one of the Cerberus soldiers, and the next knocked another onto his knees, hands flailing up to the ruin of his throat. She heard the familiar, measured sound of Garrus firing, each shot precise and snake-fast. Three more of them crumpled. Launching upright, she darted past the pillar, her boots snapping hard against the floor. Eight more hurtled steps took her across the room.

The thudding impact of a round against her shoulder stole her breath and poise and she staggered. Heartbeats later she was up and moving, aware of the dull whine of her shields as they buzzed flat. She spun, and swore when she registered one of them closer than she'd assumed, _steps_ closer, his rifle lifting and leveling at her. Wildly, she snapped the barrel of his rifle aside with the flat of one arm. The round whipped past her head, the burst of heat and sound shockingly close. She twisted closer, another half-step taking her inside his guard. An elbow to the side of his neck sent him stumbling away from her. She straightened in time to see him topple, half his head gone.

"Clear?" Garrus asked.

"Clear. You know I had him."

"Wasting time dancing around."

She mustered up a half-decent glare. "Critic. Thanks."

The severe lines of his mouth shifted into a small smile. "You're welcome."

"Liara, you hear me?" Shepard paused under the last arch. Through open doors she noted the white expanse of another corridor, untenanted.

"We're at the shuttles," Liara responded, slightly harried. "They were very persistent."

"On our end as well."

"No casualties, Shepard."

"Good," she said, sighing the word out. "Give us two minutes and we'll catch you."

* * *

><p>Jack was prowling, Shepard thought, that same tight-shouldered motion she'd seen whenever they'd crashed headlong into the clamour of a Cerberus firefight. Even now, however long later and with the reek of combat scrubbed off and still, she understood. Sitting on the couch, both booted feet slung up and crossed on the table, she watched as Jack paced the length of the cabin again.<p>

"Okay," Shepard said mildly. "Given that you slugged me in the jaw earlier, I think I'm owed some kind of decent story."

"Fairly sure you deserved it."

"Debatable."

"You'll get over it."

"Somehow, I'm sure."

Jack turned, halfway between the armour locker and the workbench. "Heard about Earth. Rough as it sounded?"

"Wasn't easy. Hell," Shepard said, amending. "It was fucking hard. Seeing it and then leaving it."

"Yeah." Jack sat, perching on the end of the couch, both hands flat over her knees. "You still rolling around with the turian?"

"Rolling and a few other somewhat more interesting activities."

Jack laughed, the sound short and clipped. "Glad someone's having some fun." Her hands darted again, brushing her shoulders and the trailing end of her hair, swept back and tied. "I pulled some files from the academy. Well, I lifted some files from the Cerberus bastards while they were plugging into our systems. Nothing spectacular, but still enough of a fucking suggestion that they're interested in pulling in biotic recruits."

"Your words or theirs?"

"Theirs." Jack grinned, all teeth. "I assumed it meant collecting people for the cause. Whatever the hell the cause is."

"That's the tricky part. Honestly, I'm not sure. To a point, I guess I get that bit about wanting humanity to come through not just breathing but somewhere on top."

"You think there's more to it."

"Yeah, I do, and I notice that that wasn't a question." Shepard shrugged and added, "We ran into the Illusive Man a while back."

Briefly, she ran through it, Mars and the archives, and the Illusive Man's voice, clipped and controlled.

"_Improving_ them," Jack echoed, her lips twisting. "Fucking bastard. Tell me you're going to split his fucking head from his shoulders someday."

"Should the option come up," Shepard said. "Count on it."

"Good."

"What are your plans?"

Jack shrugged. "Get my kids checked out after this fuck-up and see where we can be useful."

"Wasn't a fuck-up, Jack."

"They blindsided us," Jack said crisply. "Should've seen it. Something like it."

"You can't see everything."

"Doesn't mean it feels any good afterwards."

"No," Shepard said, softer. "It doesn't."

"Yeah, so," Jack said, and frowned. "Glad you were, you know. In the area."

Shepard stifled a smile. "Yeah, well. I just wanted to know how the hell you got yourself mistaken for a responsible citizen."

"Nothing better to do," Jack snapped. "That and maybe, hell. Maybe I spent too much time around you and picked up some of your worst habits."

"Charming."

"I know. Hey, Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Good to see you're still breathing."


	43. Questions

_Still here :) Huge thanks to everyone who's following and favouriting this story. As always, nearly everything belongs to Bioware, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Forty-Three: Questions**_

"Okay," Shepard said, and squinted again at the maze of blue lines and interlocking edges that floated above the small table. "That's everything they've done to it?"

Liara nodded. She gestured at one side of it – _it, the plans, the tangled thing that had Hackett's resources scampering madly to make some sort of sense out of it all_ – and traced a jagged dipping line with one hand. "As of five days ago, according to Hackett's report."

Shepard snorted. "They're adding bits and pieces to it that fast?"

"Perhaps that desperately. And it's still no real guarantee that this project will amount to anything."

"And here I thought I'd already imagined everything that could possibly go wrong."

Liara laughed, the sound of it halfway to relief. "I'm sorry. That was a terrible thing to say."

"Not at all," Shepard told her mildly.

"I suppose I'm concerned that even with the time I spent with the plans on Mars, even with how I spoke to the Council about it, I suspect the project will need to have progressed significantly towards completion before, well," Liara said, and shrugged lightly.

"Before we'll know if we'll be able get it done any further."

"Exactly."

"Okay. Anything else we need to go over?"

"Most of the comm traffic from my sources isn't good. Usually, at best I've got Glyph combing through information that tells us what we've lost." Liara hesitated, her eyes flickering. "Who we've lost."

"I know. That's the tough part."

"One report, though," Liara said. "Very short, bare details only. But if nothing changes on the follow-up, it seems that the _Shanghai_ evacuated the colony of Uqbar."

Shepard leaned forward. "Alliance? How many did they get?"

"The initial report suggest all the colonists. I'd prefer to wait for confirmation, but," Liara said, and smiled.

"How'd they pull it off?"

"Shuttle runs, I read."

"A fucking lot of shuttle runs," Shepard said, quietly marveling. "That's good to know."

"Yes. Yes, it is."

For brief moments Liara sat wordlessly, her gaze indistinct and shifting somewhere between the floor and the pale spread of the wall. "Shepard, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Actually, tell you something, I mean." Liara turned slightly, her hands sliding against the edge of the table. "I meant to come to Earth. After I was sent to Mars, I mean. Ridiculous that I thought I had too much to do."

Shepard grinned. "Doubt I'd've been very good company. Six months complaining to myself about the food, playing cards with Vega and memorizing the cloud patterns through my window. Not all that much to talk about."

"Still, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'm just impressed I managed to get you out of your office this evening for more than ten minutes."

"There's a lot of data coming in," Liara protested.

"Isn't that what the most helpful and enthusiastic information drone in the whole galaxy is for?"

"He's not that bad," Liara said, and paused. "You're making fun of me."

"Maybe a little."

"You're forgiven."

"You know what trips me up at the moment?"

"Steep stairs?"

Shepard laughed. "Okay. I'll give you that one. You know when you're thinking one thing, and it doesn't stay where it should?"

"Yes," Liara answered, softer.

"Great catching up with Jack. Seeing her with her students, getting them all out." She remembered it, how Jack had _finally_ let herself slow down, let the rock-hard tension bleed away until she was leaning back against the wall.

_"Okay, give me some advice."_

_ Shepard blinked. "About what?"_

_ "My kids. They're tough, but they're not as tough as they think they are. I want them safe." Jack grinned. "Safe as I can make them."_

_ "And the issue is?"_

_ "I want them running back-up." _

_ "You've been asked to ship them off to frontline combat?"_

_ "Not yet," Jack said sharply. _

_ "Okay," Shepard said. "I can give you a recommendation that they stay as support crew. I need you to know that I can't tell you how much help that will actually be in the long term."_

_ "Yeah. I know. Fucking Reapers. Changing things up by the week." _

_ "Yeah. They're good at that." _

_ "Funny. Hey, Shepard? Thanks." _

"But?"

"But," she answered, and exhaled slowly. "I don't know. We landed the _Normandy_ with a full crew those six months and a bit ago. That's a lot of people and a lot of names out there somewhere."

"Yes."

"Sorry." Shepard slouched back against the couch. She swung her feet up onto the table, planting them somewhere between two datapads and a half-folded set of fatigues. "That really wasn't very helpful."

Wryly, Liara said, "I'll survive, I promise."

She was halfway through summoning a retort when the comm button buzzed. Gracelessly, she lunged upright for it, slapping it on and mumbling, "Yeah?"

"Sorry, Commander," Traynor answered.

"No problem. What have you got?"

"Priority report and mission briefing from Admiral Hackett. I'm looking at a lot of data here, so I figured you might want it soon as possible."

"Good. What are we walking into this time?"

"It's about something called Task Force Aurora."

* * *

><p>The wide, glittering ward arms of the Citadel were fiercely bright this early, slicing into the glow of the sunlight. Joker leaned deeper into his chair and eased the speed down another notch. Idly, he wondered how many times he'd made this landing. He'd silently counted past a dozen before the Alliance docking officials crackled their way onto the comm and clarified the ship's course. Mechanically he responded, and minutes later, he'd glided the ship in and through the gleaming curves of the shields.<p>

Footsteps snapped against the walkway behind, and he said, "We're in, Commander."

"Nice flying," Shepard said, almost absently. "You prying yourself out of the ship?"

"Sorry, what?"

"We'll be here a while."

"That mean you've got an exciting day planned?"

"Depends. Does that include running all over the Citadel talking to people?"

"Rather you than me." Joker swiveled the chair slightly.

"Unless you hear otherwise, you've got six hours."

"What would _otherwise_ count as?"

Shepard grinned crookedly. "Me, shouting at you to get the damn ship back in the air because I simply cannot handle another second of speaking to Councilor Udina."

"Fair point. And alright," he said, when she stayed there, half-leaning against the portside console. "I'm taking the hint."

Thirty-five minutes later he was out of the _Normandy_, halfway across some teeming plaza and mercifully sitting again, EDI on his other side. Opposite, Garrus settled himself in one of the chairs, James slouching next to him. They'd talked on the way through, and he'd listened, mostly, Garrus swapping old C-Sec stories with James, both of them vaguely agreeing about crowds in narrow corners and how quickly cramped terrain might turn into a bitch to work with.

He'd found himself watching EDI, the silent and sinuous way she'd walked beside him, never once quickening her pace beyond his, never once letting him catch her deliberately slowing for him, even when he'd stumbled at the steps twenty metres back.

"Okay. Vakarian, got a question," James said.

"Go ahead."

"The Reaper troops. The ground troops. You and the Commander saw them before, right?"

"The husks, yeah." Garrus nodded. "The ones that used to be human, I guess."

"What did you think?"

"Back then?" Garrus flattened his hands against the table. "Shepard and her ground team saw them way back on Eden Prime. Then we'd see them, remote planets, isolated locations. Usually a science team or a mining team or something, and they'd've been changed by something they found."

"Yeah," Joker said, quieter. "It was weird. Places tucked away that no sane person would look at. Send down a planetside team, you'd get a face-full of the things. Well, _you _would, being on the ground."

Garrus laughed. "Strangest part is that we used to think that husks were okay. Well," he amended. "Not _okay_."

James nodded. "I get it. And now the mess they make of turians, and rachni, and whatever the hell the big hefty bastards used to be."

"Yeah," Garrus said. "Which makes you wonder what we get to see next."

"You people are so bizarrely cheerful sometimes," Joker muttered. "When I get back to my cockpit, I'm never leaving it."

James responded, saying something mildly mocking that made him smile slightly. He leaned back until he felt the digging pressure of the chair and wondered why his thoughts were jumping, fitful like this. He'd been here God knew how many times, officially and less so and there was no damn good reason for the way his nerves were jangling.

Maybe, he thought, maybe he was just too tired. Maybe the ward was too loud, too busy, too thronged. Maybe he'd been shipboard too long.

_He sat through the service because he knew he damn well had to, because he couldn't _not_ be there. He made it through almost to the end before he swallowed thickly. Afterwards, he pushed upright and very carefully made his way out through the door and into the bigger hall beyond, where the walls were covered in shivering images of her. Alliance promo shots, he was almost sure, and unaccountably, it dug under his skin. Shining armour and the colours all prettied up and too bright. _

_ At the door he found Garrus, the turian standing statue-still, his arms folded. _

_ "Hey," Garrus said, his voice rough and flat. _

_ "Hey." _

_ "You staying?"_

_ "On the Citadel?" Joker shrugged. "I don't know. I just – yeah. Don't know." _

_ "No," Garrus said heavily. "Me neither." _

_ "You want to," Joker said, and shoved unsteady fingers through his hair. "You want to get out of here?"_

_ "Sure."_

_ The turian stayed silent all the way through the twisting corridors beyond, and as wordlessly, Joker trailed him into the crowded haze of the ward. Later, sitting with his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee, he stared at the twining steam and tried to muster up the desire to start drinking it. Opposite, the turian was staring at some point over his shoulder, his eyes all blank shadows. _

_ Still, he thought almost sourly, at least he wasn't being asked questions. Wasn't having to stand rigid and formal, his dress blues too encasing, too distractingly unfamiliar. Wasn't being herded from group to group and saying the same raw words over and over. _

_ We'll miss her. It shouldn't have happened like that. She's in our thoughts. _

_ "So," Joker said, and tightened his hands around the mug. "Did you want to..?"_

_ "Anderson told me how it happened." _

_ "Good," he replied automatically, and winced. "I mean – God. My God. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You know what I mean." _

_ "Yeah." The silence stretched until Garrus moved, blinking, as if he'd begun shaking himself loose of whatever thoughts had their hold on him. "You okay?"_

_ "Yeah," he lied. "Talked it through in debrief." _

_ "Not the same." _

_ "No." _

_He hunted for something else to say, something that might make sense of the swarming, guilty mess of his thoughts. "I feel like I don't know what to do," he said, blurting it out too quickly and too honestly. _

"_Yeah," Garrus said. "I know what you mean." _

"_You know, it was," he said, and the words failed, dry and thick suddenly. _

"_What?"_

"_Don't know. I don't know."_

Joker shifted, surfacing from the whirl of his thoughts in time to hear James ask, "So, EDI, you get tackled by security down here yet?"

"Not yet," she answered, slightly wry.

Joker grinned. "We decided we'd call her my personal assistance mobility mech."

"Assistance," James echoed, deadpan. "Right."

"Yeah, yeah. Keep laughing."

* * *

><p>Shepard paused in front of the door, halfway to hesitating. She waited a half-second longer, squared her shoulders and knocked. She heard footsteps, and the familiar whirr of the lock clicking apart, and then she was looking at Alenko.<p>

"Shepard," he said, mildly. "Thanks for coming."

"Just in the neighbourhood. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back here."

"No, it's okay. There's a lot going on. I get it."

"Yeah, there is."

The words were hollow, she thought, useless and floating between them. She glanced at the spare, white confines of the room, all wall-to-ceiling windows and empty space. He was moving too slowly, she noted, slowly and carefully and with that taut kind of wariness that masked lingering pain.

Gently, Shepard asked, "How long's it taken?"

"Waking up didn't take all that long," he answered. "Everything else seems a bit tougher."

"You'll get there."

"Yeah."

She chose one of the chairs by the windows and sat, her back to the glass and her elbows on her knees. The silence clawed at her, blanketing, and briefly she wondered where the hell to start.

"I keep seeing the oddest things on the Alliance news channels," he said, almost wistfully. "Something about Tuchanka?"

Despite herself, Shepard grinned. "Yeah, that was an interesting one."

"Interesting," he repeated. "Nice to see your customary method of interpretation hasn't changed."

"The way things are going, it's that or never sleep again."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know."

His words faded again, and when the quiet rushed back, she simply sat, waiting. Under the low spill of the lights he looked wrung through, all ashen pallor beneath thick dark hair.

"Did you see Councilor Udina today?"

"To my great delight," Shepard answered. "And yes, he mentioned the Spectre offer."

"Good." His gaze flicked up to meet hers before darting away again. "I wanted to ask want you think."

"I think if you think you can make something of it, say yes."

Alenko smiled, the movement brief. "That's diplomatic."

"Okay," she said, firmer. "But if I were you, if I said yes, I'd be damned sure not to get tied too close to Udina."

"That's the problem." Alenko scrubbed a hand over the back of his head. "We're falling apart. Earth's cut off, the Alliance is scattered, and I'm stuck here."

"Then you want to find me a suggestion for getting back to Earth before we're good and fucking ready that _won't_ end up with us all getting killed?"

"No. I didn't mean that." His eyes flickered. "I meant that it feels like all my options got taken away. So if I'm going to make something of this, I have to do it the right way."

"Right." She heard her own voice grating and hauled back the flare of her temper. "My opinion's still the same. You'd make a good Spectre. You do what you can with what they give you." She shrugged. "Not entirely sure what you want me to say here."

"It's meant to be an honour. Just feels…"

"Stopgap measures?"

"Something like that."

Shepard shifted against the back of the chair. The heavy press of the silence assailed her, and when she struggled to dredge up the right words, she failed. _Time_, she thought. Time and distance and maybe sometimes the edge does wear itself down until you can't dredge up anything useful to say that isn't a platitude.

"I guess it is an honour," she admitted. "In my case, it was also clearance to go chase Saren Arterius."

"Not just that."

"No. No, it wasn't then and it isn't now. But, hell. If the Council jumped at a reason to try out a human Spectre, then I jumped at the chance to dig right to the bottom of whatever Arterius was doing."

"I get it," Alenko said, and frowned.

"But?"

"I don't know. I guess it's the politics of it that's bothering me." His mouth shifted into another fleeting smile. "And yes, I know this is the point where you tell me that human Spectres are never going to be anything but mired in politics."

_The briefing room was still and silent this late, lit by the glow from the display above the main table. Shepard leaned on her elbows and made herself go over it again, just the one more time, blinking against the sudden swell of fatigue. _

_Assignment list from the Council, topped by some tiny rock of a planet that the mission notes helpfully explained would be likely scalding hot and full of fucking lava. Security details followed, along with far too many files on Spectre activity. Eventually she turned her attention to the compiled report she'd cobbled together, every fragment they'd dug up on Arterius, Eden Prime and the quarian's data and the turian's obstinate papertrail and every tiny connection they'd wrangled. _

_Small prints between worlds that made some kind of pattern, made slowly and carefully and briefly she recalled Arterius' voice at the hearing, measured and clipped and granite-hard. _

_The door hissed open behind her, and Kaidan said, "You're still up?" _

"_So are you," she retorted without turning. "Going over the thousand and one things we need to get done." _

"_That few?"_

"_Hah." She straightened up, aware of the sudden twinge in her back. "I'll let you know if I can narrow it down." _

_He leaned against the table, arms folded. "So how does it feel, making history?" _

"_Not exactly what I had on my to-do list for the day." She dragged herself away from the screen. Summoning a smile, she added, "And I know damn well that if I have a look at the vid, my armour will look scuffed to hell." _

"_I don't know. Looked pretty good from where I was standing." He paused, his gaze dipping down to the floor. "Commander, you reckon it'll help?"_

"_Off the record, LT?" _

_He smiled. "Of course." _

"_We're in this and we need to get it done."_

"_And that means playing politics." _

"_If that's how we get it done," she said. "And yes, I know this is the part where you ask me if I meant what I said. I did. It's an honour. It just happens to be an honour that gets us on our way." _

"_Finding this bastard," he said. "Feels like it could be a long mission." _

"_Had other plans, did you?" _

"_Now that I think about it," he said, and grinned. "Not right now." _

"So," Alenko said. "Where are you off to after this?"

"More of running around with my ass on fire, courtesy of the Alliance."

"Isn't that what we sign up for?"

"Yeah," she said, and found herself smiling slightly. "I guess sometimes I forget."

"You? Never," he retorted.

"Perhaps."

"Look," he said abruptly. "I, yeah. I wanted to, well. About Mars."

She said nothing, only sat, her gaze on his face, on the way his eyes were flickering, uncertain.

"It was a hell of a day," he said. "I wasn't thinking right."

"Okay."

"Some of the things I said."

"I get it." She shrugged. "Last time you'd seen me, I was all decked out in nice new colours. Makes sense you'd be wary."

"Yeah, but," he said.

"Kaidan, we'd just seen Earth get torn up. No one was thinking right."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess."

Guardedly, she asked, "So what's really eating you up right now?"

He paused, his forehead furrowing. "What you just said, I guess. Decked out in nice new colours."

"And?"

"Did you change them back?"

Shepard leaned forward, linking her hands together. "You really want to tell me that I could've walked away from Cerberus at that point? They'd patched me up. They'd handed me a ship, a mission, payment, and a way to find out just what the fuck the Collectors were up to."

"I'm just remembering all those times we came up against them. They'd – the things they did. They things they thought were worthwhile doing."

"Yeah," she said, nodding. She remembered it, the bases they'd combed through, often on garbled packets of information that had been filtered twice through Hackett's communications personnel before they'd found themselves there. "I remember it. The rachni. The experiments. Anything they thought they could get their hands on."

"And all of it apparently for the good of humanity," Alenko muttered.

"They're not me," she snarled.

"I know. I do."

"Then tell me why you walked away on Horizon."

His head jerked up. "Of course I walked away. I had my orders."

"Orders."

"Shepard," he said.

"No, I heard you. Orders."

"You were gone," he said fiercely. "I saw the _Normandy_ fall apart. I _saw_ it happen."

"And then you decided you'd rather not even try and talk it through?"

"On Horizon? I didn't know what you were," he said. "Who you were."

"Right."

"I don't know what it is you want me to say here."

"Nothing, I guess," she said crisply. "Unless you want to tell me that it's easier to kick against orders when you're not the one making the hard choices."

His shoulders stiffened. "That's unfair."

"Yeah." Between heartbeats, the anger seeped away. "You're actually okay?"

Alenko blinked at her. "Yeah. Getting there. Still getting prodded by doctors too much."

"As much as it takes." Shepard straightened up in the chair. "Seeing soldiers get an inch away from dying on my watch is not something I want to get used to."

"And that's all," he said, and stopped. "God. Sorry."

"We can start yelling at each other if it'd make you feel better."

He smiled, the motion slow and surprised. "No, not really. Hey, Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for coming."

She laughed, the sound of it short and catching in her throat. "Really?"

"Yes, really. It's good to know you're still breathing. After the Reapers," he said, and shrugged. "Hell. You know. You were there."

"Yeah," she said, and wondered what else she could say, what else she was meant to say. "I know what you mean."

"So you'll be careful out there, right?"

"You know how I define careful." She pushed upright and out of the chair. "Let me know if you choose the Spectre position."

"Of course." He clasped her hand briefly, the pressure of his fingers rough and dry. "Stay safe, Shepard."

* * *

><p>Three hours later, Shepard strode across the docking platform, her thoughts whirling and fixing on the tangled mess she'd found in Doctor Bryson's office. She tapped her comm and said, "Joker? You there?"<p>

"Here and waiting," he responded, almost immediately. "How'd your day go, Commander?"

"It was weird."

"In light of recent and not-so recent events, I feel like I'm going to need you to explain a bit more for me, Commander."

"Short story is that our contact, Doctor Bryson, is dead."

"What?"

"Killed by his assistant, right in front of me. Single shot to the head. Long story is that his assistant swears blind he didn't do it."

"That's….not one I've heard before."

"I'm filing it under _well, shit._"

"You're so organised, Commander."

"That's supportive," she said drily, and flicked the comm off.

Brisk minutes took her through the airlock and into the CIC. There, she handed Traynor the jumble of research notes and fieldwork reports she'd scrounged from Bryson's quarters, along with a wry apology. At the loft deck, she keyed the door open and grinned when she noticed Garrus leaning over the workbench, his gaze locked on the snapped-apart pieces of his rifle.

"You cleaned that yesterday," she said mildly.

"Day before yesterday." He turned, blue eyes lifting and meeting hers. "You okay?"

Shepard sank onto the couch, twisting so she could sling her feet up. "Task Force Aurora just hit a fairly significant snag."

Brusquely she explained, Bryson's quarters and the lab with its odd artefacts and the glowing constellation charts mapping research and exploration and the absurd, frantic hunt for something that sounded carved out of myth.

"Leviathan," Garrus echoed. "That's a cheery name to start with. You reckon Bryson pushed too far? Got himself singled out?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "It was – shit, you'll think I'm insane."

"Don't worry. I already do." He crossed the floor to the couch and tapped the side of her leg until she moved slightly. He sat beside her, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "What do you mean?"

"I spoke with Bryson and Hadley while I was there. Before it went to shit. Seemed normal. Typical. They gave me a walkthrough of the lab and got me caught up on how they'd approached Hackett."

"But?"

"Then Bryson said something about how his team had found something new. And Hadley's voice changed. Hell, _he_ changed."

"Changed?"

"Best I can describe it," she said. "His voice was different, his face was different. The way he fucking _moved_ was different. You know what it made me think of?"

"What?"

"You remember Harbinger?"

Garrus tipped his head to one side. "Not likely to forget that talkative bastard for the rest of my life."

"Yeah, that's an ingrained memory for me as well, I think."

"What else do we know?"

"I can forward you about a thousand and one pages of Bryson's research, if you want."

"I'm touched. You want to keep digging on this one?"

"Guess we have to," she answered.

"And you're intrigued."

"Interested," she protested. She tried to stifle a smile and failed. "Know me that well, huh?"

"Well," Garrus said, and leaned close enough so he could mouth at the side of her neck, his teeth grazing down to her collarbone. "Yeah."

She traced the side of his face and further, until her fingers dipped around and under his fringe. "I'll give you that one."

He laughed, the edges of his mouth shifting against her skin. "I'm overcome."

"Sure you are." Shepard slumped back against the couch. "I talked to Kaidan."

"He's up and walking?"

"Up and walking. Still looks wretched." She shook her head. "That mech nearly slugged the life out of him and you can still see it."

"You reckon he'll pull through it?"

"Yeah. I think he's just spinning himself in circles on the Citadel."

"Yeah, I get that. It's always tough, not knowing where to point yourself next."

"Udina's leaning on him for a Spectre position."

Garrus blinked. "You think Udina would've pushed if Earth hadn't been hit?"

"I'm not sure," she replied honestly. "But I guess it gives Udina another angle to keep kicking at the rest of the Council. And hell, we sure as shit need them hearing us. You know the part that gets to me?"

"The Citadel's meant to be the centre," he said, nodding. "And if this goes on long enough, it won't be. Somehow it'll split itself apart before the Reapers even get there."

She nudged him idly. "And here I thought I was the nasty, cynical one."

"Realist," he retorted.

"Uh-huh." She traced her way across the back of his hand, finding the softer patches between his fingers. "I just realised I never asked you whether you all got EDI back to the ship without getting arrested."

Garrus laughed. "You'd've heard about that already, I promise." He paused, rolling his hand over hers so that their fingers were locked together. "Whole wards full of refugees now."

"Yeah. Udina said something about it. Coming in by the dozens every day, he said."

"He'd be right," Garrus said.

She looked at him, at the sharp angles of his face. "What happened?"

"Victus sent me a tracking report. Movement, numbers, that kind of thing. Mostly wounded. Mostly from Menae."

Very gently, Shepard closed her other hand over the top of his. She understood – painfully, achingly, she understood – the gaps between his words, how he'd shied from naming Palaven, how she knew she had to fight with herself to parse Earth down into the blunt brutality of numbers.

"He threw me a contact, Tactus. Said he was on Menae until Reaper ground troops tried to rip him apart. He's been handling refugee processing, food storage, med supplies, the usual."

"What happened?"

"Somewhere someone's orders got tangled, and a fair amount of supplies got diverted up to the Presidium."

Shepard frowned. "Because they're just wallowing in privation up there."

"Yeah, well. I talked it through with Tactus and then took it straight to Bailey." Garrus' teeth flashed in a smile, vanishing as fast. "Asking for favours still occasionally works, I guess."

"You name-dropped yourself?"

He snorted. "Yeah. I guess I did."

"Did it feel good?" she asked teasingly.

"If it hadn't been about getting supplies through to starving people, then yeah," he told her wryly. "Don't know if it'll help, not in the long run."

"It'll help for now. That matters."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. It does. You think it's weird that I can't wait to leave?"

"We already left," she said, and kissed the side of his face. "Remember?"

"Funny."

"I know what you mean. And I don't think it's weird. There's too much to think through."

"So what do you do?"

"You keep pushing it into boxes. Don't let yourself think about it until you have to."

Garrus gathered her closer, his hands finding the arch of her back and stroking. "And that works?"

"Last time it worked for me? I think I was twenty, and trying to compartmentalise a scouting mission."

He laughed against her throat, and the warmth of his tongue followed, dipping over her pulse. "That's reassuring."

She let herself sink onto him, marveling at the uncomplicated ease of it, of the way she cleaved against him, the way they fit together. "Downtime's usually the worst for it. When you've got nothing else to occupy your thoughts."

"I don't know," Garrus said, and mouthed at the junction of her neck and shoulder. "I have quite a few ideas occupying my thoughts right now."

"Quite a few, hmm?" She held him there against her, her hand sliding up to the back of his head. The rhythm of his breathing changed, turning hot and erratic against her skin.

"Maybe even enough to keep us busy until we have to go find this monster of yours."

"It might not be a monster," she protested.

"With that name, our luck, and the way things are going? Shepard, there's no way I'm betting against it."


	44. Oceans

_As always, Bioware owns nearly everything. A huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Forty-Four: Oceans **_

In the drowsy last hour before the day cycle kicked in, Shepard stirred against rumpled sheets. She twisted over, clumsily burrowing her way under the arch of Garrus' arm. She felt the rumbling response of his laughter, the sound half-blurred.

"So," Garrus said, hauling her closer. "You reckon we'll find this creature of yours this time?"

Shepard groaned. "My thoughts were a nice peaceful place until you had to go and say that."

"You were thinking it, too."

"Yeah." She leaned her head against the side of his arm. "I feel like we've been chipping away at it, and it only gets us half a step ahead each time."

"And each half a step only gets us more questions. I know."

"You used to be a cop. Aren't you meant to enjoy tracking things down?"

"Sure. Like suspects, through three wards. Not monsters through three systems who can apparently add mind-control to the list of weird things they can do."

She grinned. "Well, when you put it like that."

"Not sure what I was expecting," he said, his eyes flickering. "But on Mahavid, it was there in their brains for ten years. _Ten_ years. Keeping itself hidden."

"Yeah," she said, softer.

She thought of it, the strange, glassy silence of the mining facility, the slow long hours it had taken, combing their way through reports that were fractured and didn't quite add up, not really, as if the writing was some bizarrely piecemeal attempt to appear functional. The men and women they'd found there, all them wasted and thin and their faces blank, moving carefully and slowly, as if breathing was an effort.

"Hey," Garrus said. He mouthed gently at the bare slope of her shoulder. "What're you thinking? Too many pieces in play?"

"Too many places in play, if that makes sense. And yeah, I know it's all hooked into those damn artifacts. Mahavid and the Citadel and Namakli, and I _know_ we saw them in action." She scowled. "Shit, I stood there and watched one of them light up like a fucking grenade."

The digsite, she thought, the ground there all swarmed with Reaper ground troops and the sky above thick with harvesters as they coasted, heavy wings beating through yellow skeins of cloud. The way they'd traced their way through the excavation and seen another one of the fucking things, all blue and green and shining, too bright to look at, so painfully livid that you had to squint sidelong.

"And?"

"And I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around it."

Teasingly, he said, "After everything else we've run into? I'd've bet it'd take a fleet of Reapers getting rid of Cerberus for us and then taking a vow of pacifism to shock you."

"You're so funny." Shepard rolled herself on top of him, her hands sliding across the dips and lines of his chest. "Means this thing has reach and history. A hell of a lot of both."

Garrus' eyes glinted wickedly. "And you told it to go run and hide."

"I didn't tell it to run and hide."

"You told it we'd find it no matter how big a fucking rock it might choose to bury itself under."

She snorted. "It was pissing me off. We'd danced around after it for days, put Ann through the wringer trying to trace it, and all it could give me was yet another threat about not breaking the darkness."

"Breaching."

"Whichever." For long, idle moments, she let herself feel the unhurried tempo of him breathing beneath her. "Guess it knows we're coming."

"Guess we shouldn't be late and disappoint it."

Shepard leaned down, kissing her way along his blue markings until she could taste the rough edges of his mouth. "I like the way you think."

* * *

><p>This early, the firing range was untenanted, as empty as the corridors outside had been. Kaidan ran a scrutinizing gaze over the targets before he turned, making his way back to the arms locker.<p>

Mornings still had him waking awkwardly, the pain dull and halfway to banished. Still, he'd made himself clear it with the doctor and once she'd okayed it, he'd forwarded a request to the Councilor and found himself in the training rooms, running himself through the paces of lifting and sighting and firing.

Those first few days his aim had come slowly, knocked off-kilter by the insistent pain at the back of his neck. Meticulously, he had grappled with it, moving away from the target step by step until the distance no longer thwarted him, until the target sparked and crumpled. Other days it was tougher, the strain in his head still there, twisting, the pistol hanging loose in his hands.

He flicked the locker open and chose one of the pistols first, the weapon light and well-kept.

_He dreamed of the water, the water rushing up and up over the low wall. Oily and murky and running red and in the dream he touched the ugly, dripping hole just beneath his ribs. He dreamed of the water, lapping bright and turquoise against the ribboning white sand. _

_He woke breathless, and for long moments he stared up until the greyness above resolved into the blank ceiling of his quarters. The ship, he thought, briskly trying to wrangle his thoughts back into some semblance of order. He was on the ship and he was in his quarters and they were winging their way back to the Citadel. _

_Back to the Citadel with the news of Virmire and Sovereign and whatever the hell that might mean. _

_He struggled into his fatigues, wincing when his hands caught across the thick patch of bandages that were still wrapped around his waist. He'd need to take himself back into the medbay, he knew, sit stiff and awkward while Chakwas went over the damage again. _

_He discovered Shepard in the briefing room, head bowed over a spread of datapads. She was exhausted, he saw, Virmire written into the rigid line of her shoulders, the splayed way her hands were clamped on the main table. She glanced over her shoulder at him, her dark eyes looking bruised and weary. _

"_Hey," she said, quietly. "You feel any better today?" _

"_Yeah, easing a bit."_

"_Take a hit like that, it'll knock the living hell out of you. Make sure Chakwas gets her money's worth out of it." _

_Despite himself, he smiled. "Of course. How's it looking?" _

"_My report? Between the krogan army, the sentient ship and getting one of my crew killed, I'd say it starts out bad, tails off into worse territory, and then ends up looking completely fucking catastrophic." _

"_Sorry. Stupid question." _

"_No. No, it wasn't." She scraped a hand through her hair. "I tried to package it all up neatly, then figured that I'd just say fuck it and hand them the truth." _

"_No platitudes?" _

"_Not sure how you can turn what we saw into a platitude." She turned, leaning against the table. "Don't know what the Council are expecting us to bring back, but this needs to shut them up long enough for them to think about it." _

"_They listened after Noveria." _

"_Yeah, because we finally proved the connection between Benezia and Arterius. Nary a talking ship to be seen that time, as I recall." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. "Shit. Sorry. Too much running in circles through my head." _

"_I get it, Commander." _

"_Do me a favour? Read over this. Let me know what you think." _

"_You're sure?" _

"_Another set of eyes right now can only help." She sighed, her gaze skipping over his shoulder and up to the ceiling. "I know damn well I haven't written enough distance into that report." _

_Nodding, he understood it, the way you had to claw your way back from it, barricade yourself behind the words and write it line by line as if it had nothing to do with the clamour of combat and the way it could change, savagely fast. "Sure. If it'll help." _

The pistol kicked in his hands and he held it steady. Another round, and the target crumpled. Kaidan straightened, aware of the frustrating coil of sweat at the back of his neck, of the way his hands were clamping around the pistol. As methodically, he turned back to the arms locker. This time, he lifted out a rifle and settled it tight against his shoulder.

The first burst rattled wide, the muzzle climbing too high. He checked his stance, coiled the rifle in close, and fired again. The target shook, and after he squeezed the trigger again, it collapsed.

Breathing too roughly, Kaidan slotted the rifle back into the locker. Halfway to the door, he tapped his comm unit and waited.

"Udina," the Councilor responded brusquely.

"Councilor Udina. Major Alenko here."

"What can I do for you, Major?"

"It's about the Spectre position, Councilor."

* * *

><p>The alarm jolted Tali out of uneven, exhausting dreams. She rolled off her bunk and made it upright fast enough that she jarred her feet hard against the floor. She ran brisk, methodical hands over the outer catches and snaps and buckles at her shoulders and ankles.<p>

"What is it?" she said into her comm.

"Geth fleet's reforming," Koris snapped back. "I need you up here, right away."

She yanked the weapon locker open and reached in, one hand closing around her shotgun. "On my way."

She discovered the narrow corridor outside her quarters already thronged. She ducked past two marines and darted under the archway before her comm unit hissed again, Koris' voice fraying desperately. In brisk instants she was in the CIC, pushing her way through to where Koris was leaning over one of the visual feed consoles.

"What are we looking at?" Tali asked.

He gestured at the screen. "Look. Every time we punch a hole in their defensive wall, they reform. They're coming up from planetside again, and faster than we can keep up."

For long, wavering moments she stared at the visual feed, ragged at the edges and damning. Geth fighters gliding in long, viciously precise lines, fanning out around larger ships, and all of them circling the pale yellow blur that was Rannoch. They flew with punishing efficiency, curling closer to the planet on every scything sweep.

"What about us?" Tali asked heavily.

"That's the odd part."

"How so?"

"We attack, they respond."

"Admiral," she said.

"It's as if they're holding Rannoch from a purely defensive position. We cross the line – wherever that is – and they respond."

Tali shook her head. "I spoke to Admiral Xen. Her records show the geth fighters moving first. Breaking through our lines and pushing until we fall back further."

"That was six days ago."

"So," Tali said. "Something's changed."

"Changed. Changing. I don't know. "

_Tali ran the diagnostic again, waiting while the screen rippled. She heard light footsteps on the catwalk behind and Shepard said, "Hey. You busy?" _

_ "Not really. Do you need something, Commander?" _

_ Shepard paused beside her, hands resting against the workstation. "Well, I thought I'd start out by making sure you're settling in alright, and then I thought I'd dive right into some awkward questions about geth." _

_ Tali laughed. "Yes, I am settling in alright, and I'll try to answer what I can about the geth." _

_ "Okay. The memory core you found. You were looking for it or you happened to find it?" _

_ "I was looking for it." Tali turned, shrugging. "I'd heard rumours." _

_ "Given how long we know they've been behind the Perseus Veil, why bother?" _

_ Ruefully, Tali said, "You know how I was talking about my Pilgrimage?" _

_ "I remember." _

_ "Well, it would be very significant to bring back a part of a geth to the Flotilla. Particularly if that geth contained useful information." _

_ Shepard nodded. "I understand." _

"_I wasn't even sure what I was looking at for a long time. Then, once I realized what kind of tech I was holding, I supposed I should start digging what I could out of it."_

_ "You see any more of them?"_

_ "Yes," she answered. "But only, I think, because after I found the core, I started looking for them. There's never just one."_

_ "Why?" _

_ "They work better the more there are. Networked intelligences that build upon each other, increasing with each additional unit." _

_ Shepard blinked. "The more of them the smarter they are? Whose fucking clever idea was that?" She grimaced. "God. Sorry." _

_ "No, it's fine," Tali said wryly. "It's also true." _

_ "You mind if I ask you to have a look at any new geth we run into?" _

_ "Of course not. But, Commander, I can't guarantee I'll be able to tell you anything useful." _

_ "Perhaps not, but you know a hell of a lot more about these things than the rest of us." _

_ "Well. Not that much more." _

_ "Modesty," Shepard said, and grinned. "Not the place for it." _

_ Tali laughed again, surprising herself. "Thank you, Commander." _

_ "For what?" _

_ "I don't know. For letting me settle in." _

_ "You're welcome. Last question? Well, for now." _

_ "Of course." _

_ "When we run into the big shiny bastards, the ones that look like tanks on legs?" Shepard coughed. "And yeah, I know. Great tactical assessment." _

_ "Yes, I know the ones you mean. They seem to be capable of adapting to any form of terrain." _

_ "Wonderful," Shepard muttered. "What are they? I mean, are they geth themselves, or are the geth using them the way they use rifles?" _

_ "I'm actually not sure, Commander. I'm sorry."_

_ "No problem," Shepard said. "Next time we topple one, I'll have it hauled into the loading bay and you can examine it." _

_ "Thanks, Commander. I think." _

"We _know_ they evolve," Tali said. "We've seen it. I've seen it."

"Yes, but," Koris said, and turned.

Tali followed the line of his gaze until she was looking at Admiral Xen, standing poised and still beside one of the consoles.

"Thoughts?" Xen asked calmly.

Without thinking, Tali snapped, "Everything we throw at them, they counter."

"Which means we press harder and faster."

"They're ahead of us," Tali said, and heard her own voice sharpen. "Already and always. We find the tiniest weakness in their combat formations, in their data relays, and then minutes later – seconds later - they've come up with some way to keep us out again."

"They're geth," Xen said icily. "They respond swiftly. They always have."

"This is different," Tali protested. "You must see that. This is different. There's something happening here that we can't see."

Xen shifted, her stance tightening slightly. Before she could speak, Koris said, very quietly, "Look."

Tali turned, her gaze finding the visual feed. "What am I looking at?"

"Attack pattern's shifted again. They're moving."

The geth fighters were uncurling, the rigid lines of their formations breaking wider. Behind, Tali could see rank upon rank of them, the angles and curves of their ships coiled and gleaming.

"That's not a defensive line," Tali muttered.

"No," Koris said. "Not any more. We need comms stabilized."

"Right away."

Tali strode past him, her hands suddenly unsteady when she found the comm station. Beyond, she was horribly aware of the rolling black depths of space through the combed-back cockpit screens. Rannoch, she thought. She could see Rannoch, floating there, stars scattered across the darkness and the geth ships, everywhere it seemed, too many of them, gliding fast and practiced and smooth.

She waited, shoulders rigid, until the static subsided. "Admiral Tali'Zorah here. Send word to Admiral Gerrel. The Heavy Fleet needs eyes on Rannoch."

* * *

><p>Garrus stared at the grey, tilting horizon and silently concluded that the mission had already gone a fair way sideways. Seconds into the planet's atmosphere, and they'd already dumped the shuttle the hard way onto a cluster of floating hulks. A cursory sneak-and-search had turned up more than one glowing artifact, along with the uneasy assumption that the desiccated remains they'd found comprised more than one ship's crew.<p>

"Anything else?" Shepard asked.

"Lots of rain and no fish that I can see," Vega answered.

"Lovely." She scanned the horizon again, her gaze sharp. "Okay. Leviathan's somewhere under us, we know that much."

"We also know the shuttle is useless while Leviathan's defences remain in place," EDI remarked crisply.

"Right." Shepard swiped rain drops away from her forehead. "And we gave it a hell of a landing regardless. Alright. Got to be something here we can use. Here or on one of the other wrecks. Looks like Leviathan's been knocking ships out of the sky for God knows how long."

"And if not?"

"Then I guess I get to work on holding my breath," she muttered.

Garrus quartered the canting deck again, aware of the slide of his boots against the floor. Deep puddles had gathered between gaps in the overhead struts, the water rolling with each surge of the waves. He found Shepard perched on a jutting metal edge, half crouching and glaring down at the heaving sea.

"Hey," Garrus said.

"Hey." She did not look away from the pewter waves, where the wind sheared across the white flecks of foam. "Not good, even by our standards."

"There's always a way out."

"Or down, in this case."

"It could _be_ a Reaper," Garrus said musingly.

"The thought has loomed large."

"An underwater Reaper."

"Keep that up, and you'll be the one swimming down to find this bastard," Shepard muttered sourly. She pushed upright and he saw the strain in her face, in the set line of her jaw.

Gently, he said, "We'll get there."

"Yeah. Yeah, we will. So," she said, and pushed gloved fingers through the damp mop of her hair. "What can kill a Reaper?"

"Us."

"Apart from us. And that was with a fair few fleets lending a hand."

"Kalros," he said, deadpan.

"Apart from Kalros. And you're not helping," she said, smiling.

"Forgive me?"

"Somehow." She looked past him, her eyes narrowing. "Come on. This floating scrapheap has to have something going for it."

"Open decking, a decent view, clear shot at the horizon?"

"Stow it, Vakarian."

Fifteen brisk minutes took them across the length of the wreck and back, combing through the half-ruined supplies left by the last poor bastards Leviathan'd sent spinning down from the sky. Walking through runnels of water, Garrus followed her, picking his way through crates with nothing left inside, empty ammo stacks, lockers already stripped clean.

"Hey, Commander?"

"What have you got, Cortez?"

"Long shot, Commander. Found a workable mech."

Resignedly, Shepard grinned. "Alright. I'll be right over and we can have a look at it."

Garrus trailed after her, half listening to the harsh patter of the rain, aware of how it was worming down the back of his neck, how thick rivulets ran between his fingers whenever he lifted his hands.

"Okay," Garrus said, when he was standing in front of the mech. "Define workable?"

"It's in good shape," Cortez replied. "Old military model, reconfigured for undersea exploration. Give me a minute to go over its main systems and see what it's got left."

"Shepard," Garrus said, and stopped.

"Yeah, me too."

"You have no idea what I was going to say."

"You were going to tell me it's likely to be a long way down."

"Yeah," he said.

"But if we call Joker down here," she said.

"The _Normandy_ goes belly-up in the water. Yeah. Not liking our chances with that one."

"So," Shepard said, and shrugged. "I guess we go down. Or I go down. We got a lock on the probe we sent down. Should be just a case of tracking it."

"Shepard. That's still crazy."

"I know. But right now, all I know is that this thing, whatever it is, is somewhere under us. And I don't like the idea of having to swim down to see." When his expression did not soften, she added, "And besides, it's not like we haven't done crazy shit before."

"Yeah, and you damn well know it's worse when you have to sit on the sidelines and wait."

"I hear you. I'm just not sure that mech is rigged for backseat drivers."

Her breathing was coming too sharp and shallow, he noticed, the line of her mouth severe. Gently, he touched the side of her arm, his fingers locking briefly over her wrist. "Your call. I'll be here."

He felt the quick, responsive pressure of her hand in return before she stepped away.

"Cortez," Shepard said. "Talk me through it."

"Mech looks good." Cortez turned, his face streaked with the rain. "You'll need to give the emergency thrusters a kick to get yourself back to the surface."

"How much time do I have?"

"I'd say enough to get a look at where that probe landed, but I wouldn't idle around on the descent."

"Noted." As briskly, she hoisted herself up and into the mech, running her hands over the inside of the canopy, the console banks. After she'd settled into the seat, she flicked on the main systems and waited, eyes narrowed, until the screens flared and steadied. "Okay, looking good. Not sure how long comms will stay steady."

"We'll keep on them as long as we can," Cortez said.

"Good. Okay," she said again, and Garrus saw it, the steely way she was gathering herself. "Guess I'll see how fast I can get this done."

The canopy hissed closed, and Garrus stepped back, feeling the low rumble as she eased the mech forward, pace after heavy swaying pace. She guided the mech to the edge, and too quickly – _too quickly and suddenly the inside of his mouth felt sandy_ – she walked it over and into the heaving waves. The water rushed up and over and swallowed the mech.

"Okay," Vega muttered. He glared up at the grey sky. "Waiting duty. Great."

"Got a hold on the Commander's position," Cortez said. "Descending fast."

Garrus waited, too aware of the damp, clinging chill of the air, of the way the rain was sheeting down now, hammering against the sloping deck.

"…finished the major descent." The comm unit crackled again, and Shepard said, "The probe is somewhere below my current position. Following. Seen nothing yet."

"Still reading you, Commander," Cortez responded.

"Mech's staying stable. Preparing to clear the next drop. I'm seeing," she said, and the static engulfed her voice.

"Say again, Commander."

"…valleys, both sides."

"Say again?"

Silence answered, broken only by the roiling susurration of the waves. Garrus bit back the impatient urge to pace and waited instead, his gaze on the empty horizon.

"…if this thing's much deeper, I'm not sure if," Shepard said, the words half-drowned in static. She said something else, the works broken up and useless. "Not sure if you're still reading me up there."

"Still here, Commander. Interference is increasing."

"Copy. Terrain's changing up ahead. Think I," she said, the rest of the words lost to another burst of static.

"Commander? Losing you. Say again?"

"Long way down," Vega said.

"Yeah." Cortez nodded. "I'll stick with it."

"Shout if you get through," Garrus said.

"Will do."

The minutes dragged, treacherously slow. Garrus busied himself going over a handful of datapads they'd pulled from one of the makeshift shelters. Most of them were ruined, screens cracked and dripping when he tipped them up. Others still held scraps of messages, panicked emergency calls that likely never got off-planet. He found lists of dwindling supplies, and the artifacts, always the artifacts, couched in uncertain words and the eventual clawing awareness that they _altered. _

Altered words and behaviour and thought.

"Hey, Vakarian. Find anything useful?"

Garrus shook his head. "Not unless you want to know all the awful things that happened to the last people who crashed here."

"I'll pass," Vega said. "They knew about the artifacts?"

"To a point, I guess. I think they figured out something was going on with them. Not sure how much they got right."

"You think it's a Reaper?"

"Not sure," he answered honestly. "I wondered – I mean, shit, a lot of what it does sure sounds a lot like Reaper indoctrination."

"But?"

Almost absently, he shook rainwater away from his hands. "Something that was in Shepard's report. Hadley, Bryson's assistant. She said he changed _fast_. Really fast."

"So, indoctrination that it can turn off and on."

"Yeah, using the artifacts," Garrus said, and shrugged. "Maybe. And then there's that whole bit about it actually destroying a Reaper. Didn't think they turned on each other as a regular strategy."

"That's cheerful," Vega muttered.

"You asked."

Garrus looked past to him, to where EDI was examining the jutting shape of a metal spar, slick with rain. Her hands flickered over small words printed there, faded and barely there.

Before he could ask, she said, "If we can identify these ships, we can better fill in the gaps in Leviathan's past and past movements."

"So," Vega said, and grinned slowly. "You going to rust?"

"I do not believe I need to dignify that with an answer," EDI said.

"Good. Be a waste of those curves, if you ask me."

"I did not."

Garrus pushed upright, idle steps taking him back out into the rain. He squinted up at the grey blur of the horizon before letting his gaze drop to the surging waves.

"Reading movement," Cortez said sharply. "Above us and coming in fast. Reaper signatures confirmed."

Mechanically, Garrus unslung his rifle, settling its familiar weight against his shoulder. "Anything from Shepard?"

"Sorry, Vakarian. No."

"No problem." He surveyed the rippling clouds. "Cortez, stay with the shuttle. Vega, anything hits the deck near us and we keep it busy in a nice round of crossfire."

"I hear you."

"EDI, can you keep yourself close to Cortez?" When she nodded briskly, he added, "If we get swamped, feel free to come help."

"Of course," she said, and he could've sworn she was almost laughing at him.

He waited, never once looking away from the sky. Too soon he saw it, the flaring shape that meant ground troops being spun in, and lots of them, packed in and swarming. The transport's trajectory was sharp, and instants later, it slammed hard into the sea. Water sloshed across the deck, and the whole floating hulk tilted.

"Knock them back before they get their footing," Garrus said tersely. He sighted on the edge, the roll of the waves spoiling his aim until he adjusted.

The first one onto the deck was big, lumbering and drenched, hauling itself forward. Garrus fired, his first shot taking a chunk out of its neck. His next volley sent the bastard flailing back, claws slipping until it toppled back into the waves. More surged up after it, dragging themselves up and over. Across from him, Vega fired in tandem, pushing the next two back, sharp bursts scything the feet out from under one and spinning the next.

The next transport barreled hard into the deck, the impact sending Garrus staggering. He righted himself awkwardly, his boots slipping. "Behind us, twenty metres."

"Got them," Vega answered.

Garrus spun in time to see Vega hefting a grenade. The explosion swept four of them onto their knees, and EDI's follow-up shots sent them crumpling. Another transport sliced the clouds apart, skidding hard across the wet deck and thudding against the curving struts on the far side.

"Shit," Vega muttered. "They keep this up, they'll pull the whole damn thing apart."

"Yeah," Garrus answered, harried. "Don't know about you, but I don't care for swimming in my armour."

Husks this time, he noticed, spilling out of the transport with their silver-blue eyes blazing. Mechanically, he paused and sighted and fired and fired again, each shot viper-sure and vicious. Others followed, the ones almost like turians, their weapons lifting brisk and practiced as they uncoiled upright. They moved with cold efficiency, and fuck it but he still had to swallow it away, the sudden constricting pang of awareness.

_What they had been. Where they had come from. What had been done to them_.

He yanked his rifle in tight and fired, and the creature in his sights toppled, half its head missing.

"Got readings on the mech," Cortez snapped. "Commander's coming up fast."

"_Where?_" Garrus fired again. "Talk to me."

"She'll come up sharp on our left."

"Okay." He gulped down a deep breath. Shatteringly fast, his visor was spilling out the arcing trajectories of another two transports, already plummeting down. "Then we push them back fast. Cortez, the instant the mech breaks the surface, you shout out."

"Copy that."

He waited, shoulders rigid. The first transport thumped against the far side of the deck, sliding far enough that it shored up awkwardly against what might've once been an outer wall. Even before the smoke faded he'd tossed a grenade in. The impact sent the transport lurching further, and the husks that clawed their way out stumbled into Vega's relentless line of fire.

The second transport whipped over Garrus' head and ploughed hard and unwieldy through the empty ammo crates.

"Mech's up," Cortez said.

"Vega," Garrus ordered, close to breathless.

"I got them."

Garrus turned, searching the heaving waves until he saw it, the shining shape of the mech as it broke the surface. Stilted and moving awkwardly, its heavy solid limbs catching clumsily against the edge of the deck. He was halfway there before it tilted over and onto the deck. Somewhere behind, he heard Vega firing, and EDI's crisp acknowledgement.

Desperately he wrenched at the canopy, his hands slipping roughly. Something clicked on the inside and the canopy hissed up and suddenly he was looking at Shepard, ashen and silent and collapsing against him. Instinctively, he caught her, leaning her weight against his shoulder. He turned, bolstering her. Her boots slid against the deck, so he locked his arms around her and held her up properly.

"Vega?" he asked.

"They're down."

"Not the last," Cortez said.

"Shepard," Garrus snarled. She was ashen, her mouth worryingly slack. Blood ribboned her lips, cold and dark. Desperately, he worked one of his gloves off and pressed the tips of his fingers against her face. "She's _freezing_."

"Cortez," Vega called. "We need to be up and moving. Just get us off this wreck. Shepard's out cold."

"Starting up the shuttle."

"Shepard?" Garrus gritted his teeth and shook her. "Shepard? Shepard, come on. Shepard, wake up. _Shepard_." He shook her again, hard, jolting her against his shoulder.

"Breathing?" Vega demanded.

"Shallow," he said. "Really shallow."

"Okay," Vega said. "Let's get her on the shuttle."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." He stood, her whole armoured weight coming down against his shoulder again. "Okay."

"Christ," Vega mumbled.

"What?"

"Those fucking artifacts."

"Do I want to know?"

"They're, ah, glowing."

"Move," Garrus grated. "Now."

He crossed the distance to the shuttle, half-dragging her alongside him. He hauled himself in first, heaving Shepard up after, and called out for Vega and EDI to follow, and as damn fast as they could. His shoulders hit the wall and he lasted out the terse moments before he heard the engines kick in, thrumming.

"Clear?" Cortez asked.

"Clear," Vega answered, climbing up behind EDI. "God. We don't even know if we'll clear the atmosphere."

"Then we try," Garrus responded. "Take it careful as you can, Cortez."

"Of course."

Sprawled across him, Shepard was still motionless. Very gently, he lifted her upright. His fingers found her pulse and then the slight tempo of her breathing. "Come on," he murmured. "Shepard."

Her body heaved. She coughed, a wet, tearing sound. "Yeah," she mumbled. "What?"

"Just the usual," Garrus answered, his voice roughening. "Come on. Sit up."

He propped her against his shoulder. She was shaking, and he could feel it through his armour, erratic and unsteady. Her breathing was as uneven, harsh and gasping.

"Hey," Garrus said, gently. He caught her chin and turned her head, too aware of the icy, slick feel of her skin. "You alive in there?"

"Yeah. Yes. I'm okay. Update?"

Garrus swallowed. "About to see if we're going to send the shuttle right back down to where it was."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, that's not what – we should get through."

"How?"

"It," she said. "Leviathan. I found it. We – we spoke."

"Sounds like one hell of a story."

"Yeah," she said, the word rasping out. "It better be, since I was apparently just having a chat with the apex species."

"Damn," Garrus muttered. "And here I thought that was us."

"I take offence," Vega said lightly.

Shepard smiled slowly. She still had one steadying hand clamped over Garrus' arm, and he could see the ragged exhaustion in her. He wondered what she'd seen, what she'd said.

What Leviathan might have said.

"So," Garrus said, and something in him eased when she leaned into the arch of his shoulder again. "It's actually on our side?"

"Yeah," she answered. "Well. It's complicated."


	45. Threads

_As always, such a huge thank you to everyone who's following this story. Your thoughts are always most welcome. Bioware owns nearly everything. _

_**Chapter Forty-Five: Threads **_

When the airlock door hissed closed behind her, the cold was still under her skin, insidious and clinging. Clumsily, Shepard stepped across and through to the companionway, silently noting the way she was aching under her armour, marrow-deep and biting. Her pulse still thumped erratically inside her skull and she thought of it, the way the thing under the water had slid its hooks into her mind, softly and deftly and so very easily.

_The pressure of the water giving way to a gasping kind of emptiness. The sawing awareness that she appeared to be somewhere else and that that somewhere else appeared to be some huge enveloping fragment of the creature's thoughts. _

"Hey," Garrus said, and caught her elbow. "You okay?"

His voice was pitched low, she noticed, burred with worry. She nodded almost absently and said, "Yeah. Tired. Felt like a long day."

His head tilted, his blue eyes fixing on her. "You should go get cleaned up."

"Yeah. Later." She rolled the weight of her helmet between her hands, the surface of it cold and slick. "Get everyone in the briefing room. We need to be talking this through."

Garrus hesitated. "Okay," he said. "Right away."

The thought of it swarmed up and swallowed her, all those kilometers of water overhead, pressing and swirling and surging with the tides on the surface. For an exhausted moment she wrestled with it, shoving it back and steeling jangling nerves before she marched through the CIC. The slow hum of the elevator down to the lower deck eased the locked strain in her shoulders.

In the briefing room, she waited as they strode in, Garrus and Vega still reeking of the ocean and Traynor on Liara's heels, a datapad clasped between her hands.

"Joker, you're listening in?" Shepard asked.

"As if I could think of a good reason not to want to know all about this creepy undersea monster you found."

"Thanks," she said drily. "Okay. You'll all be getting the report I'll be putting together on this thing. Leviathan. But as of now, you need to know that this thing claimed to be the progeny of an ancient race, ancient enough that they were around before the Reapers."

"Claimed?" Liara asked.

"That's the tough part." Shepard shook her head. "What it said – shit, I'd've put money on it being true. The things it knew, the things it talked about, the things we saw it _do_. I want you all to go over my write-up and if anyone sees anything that rings wrong, shout out."

"So," Vega said. "If its – species - was from before the Reapers, then how..?"

"Yeah." Shepard smiled crookedly. "The way it put it, they were happy digging their tentacles into, ah, less evolved species. The apex of life and all that. They kept whole other species in thrall."

"And what started going wrong?" Garrus asked wryly.

She thought of it, the way the words had slammed through her head as if they had always been there. Each syllable glacial and punishing and insistent, that the abandonment of tribute from crumbling races echoed between the stars and meant nothing less than loss. Slowly, she explained it, the words sometimes oddly halting, how the creature had spoken of machines, created and built, and the intelligence constructed in desperate response. How questions had been asked and answered and thought over in the span of seconds, the solution brutal and unremitting.

"_In that instant, it betrayed us. It chose our kind as the first harvest. From our essence, the first Reaper was created."_

"The Reapers _began_," Liara said, murmuring the words. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I sound so shocked."

"I get it," Shepard said. "I do. I guess we all technically knew they had to start somewhere, but hearing it – yeah."

"This is good," Liara said fiercely. "They have a history. One that we can begin piecing together properly. One that we can track. There must be more out there. More in Doctor Bryson's research."

Shepard grinned crookedly. "I'm so glad I could make your day by handing you yet another paper-trail."

Liara laughed. "It's not every day that I get handed _that_ sort of paper-trail."

"And the first one?" Shepard said. "Not sure what they called it, but we apparently call it Harbinger."

"Harbinger?" Garrus repeated. "That mouthy bastard's been around since the beginning?"

"Looks like."

"Gives us another excuse to blow him sky high in many tiny pieces."

"Satisfyingly tiny pieces." Shepard scrubbed a hand across the back of her neck. "Alright, done and dismissed."

"Because we're all going to sleep so well tonight knowing all that," Joker responded.

"Very funny."

"Who's laughing?"

She paused, aware of the others filing out until she was looking across at Garrus, his hands flat on the edge of the table. She ambled around the table until she was beside him, her shoulder bumping the side of his arm. "You okay?"

"Me? I don't recall being crazy enough to hope like hell that mech would hold together."

"Yeah, alright." She nudged him gently. "God, Garrus. When I saw that needle dip more than halfway into the red part on the gauge. God. The red part being the _you're about to die_ part."

Softly, he laughed. "About the only time you're glad to walk into a giant undersea monster?"

"It was huge," she said quietly. "It filled the sea. It was like it _was_ the sea. And then it looked at me and it fucking spoke."

"You think it'll be helpful?"

"I might count it being helpful if it just doesn't do anything too bad to us," she answered archly. "I don't know, though. I can't see this thing taking orders or showing up to formation drill, but it hates the Reapers. That might be enough to keep its claws away from us and pointed the right way."

He nodded. "Gotten itself to the point where it can't hide anymore."

"Yeah. Deep water, though. Never again. Not even if I get to rewrite galactic history again."

"Setting the bar high here, Shepard."

"Always," she said, and grinned up at him. "Shit, I don't even know if this whole thing was worth it or not. We kicked it till it responded, and I'm not sure where that'll get us in the future."

"We know more about it. We know more about the Reapers."

"I guess we do." She pushed away from the table, her first step turning into an awkward stumble. "Alright. I need to get this together and forward it all to Ann."

Sharper, he said, "You need to sit down."

"Duty beckons."

"You weren't conscious when the mech broke the surface," he snapped. "You were out of it. Cold and barely breathing."

"And right now I'm up and walking and am haunted by the threat of paperwork."

"Shepard."

"That thing was in my head, Garrus. Snapping in and out of my fucking head." Angrily, she added, "It laid my thoughts open and walked right in. So no, I've got no interest right now in sitting down anywhere."

"You're running yourself into the ground with this."

"And just what the hell do you want me to do?" As crisply, she said, "So unless anything you're going to say right now is going to be useful, then I have work to do."

"No," Garrus said, his voice flattening.

He looked at her, and she knew she'd pushed it too much, lashed out venomously and reworked all the stifling fear of the sea and Leviathan and its words into fury.

"No," he said again. "I guess I don't have anything useful to say. I'll see you later."

* * *

><p>The main console screen flared. Joker leaned forward, instinctively tapping in the response, correcting the course drift by half a point. He eyed it until it steadied, until he was sure he could feel it in the walls of the ship around him, the small subtle way her arcing path changed. He leaned back carefully, looking sideways in time to find EDI already regarding him.<p>

"What?" he asked mildly.

"Nothing," she answered. "You caught it quickly."

"Hey. I know this ship inside out and upside down."

"And I would expect nothing less," she said, and he could've sworn she was smiling at him. "Jeff?"

"Mmm. What?"

"You're very tired."

"Have we had a week lately where you haven't said that to me? Or even just a single day?" He sighed and swallowed back a sudden, guilty pang. "Sorry."

"There is no need."

He scrubbed a hand across his forehead and silently considered that there absolutely had been a need, what with the way he'd been snapping at his own shadow lately. His own shadow and the way his eyelids felt cast in lead, the sting of too many late nights rolling into early mornings.

"I know we've talked about this before," he said, slightly haltingly. "But lately, hell. I don't know. They go down there and I'm just waiting for someone to tell me there's a new KIA status to record."

"So," EDI said, softer. "I assume that reminding you that Shepard's squad is highly trained would solve little?"

"Correctly assumed, again."

"Then tell me."

He shouldn't have been surprised, he supposed, not by now, not by the slow, patient note in her voice or the way she was very carefully _not_ looking at him.

"The last time we lost her, the whole thing fell apart."

"That is rather a large burden of responsibility to place on one person," EDI remarked.

"Perhaps. Yeah, okay. And because the last time, it was my fault. And no, you don't have to bother telling me I'm wrong about that again."

"Noted. May I ask a question?"

"As long as it's not about how much coffee I drink, go ahead."

She paused, and he guessed she was sorting through his words, digging under the tired burr of his voice to the sardonic honesty underneath.

"Does it help, at all?" she asked. "Talking as if the worst might happen?"

"I'm human. We like to torture ourselves."

"Why?"

He laughed, startling himself. "That's a much longer conversation." When she stayed wordless, Joker sighed and said, "It's because it still sticks in my head. The _Normandy_ falling apart. It gets its teeth into me sometimes and won't give up. Did some stupid stuff."

"You are talking about Cerberus, I presume?"

"Yeah." He rolled his head back carefully, feeling the buried strain in his shoulders. "You know something? At the time, I was too sunk in it all to wonder about just how miraculous the Illusive Man's timing was."

"What do you mean?"

"He was clever. Sharp and damn shrewd. Hell, they all were," Joker said musingly. "Wrapped it all up in how good the ship would look, made it sound like they were putting it all back the way I'd want it."

"Except, I would hazard, for me," EDI said blandly.

Joker laughed. "Hey, working barriers are there to be overcome, right?"

She tipped her face towards him and retorted, "And you are now avoiding the subject that _you_ brought up."

"Right. I still remember," he said, his voice faltering slightly. "Day they showed me around the ship. It was all clean and new and it was the same ship and not the same ship. You know what I did?"

EDI shook her head silently.

"Stupid. I actually worked out where Anderson would've sat. Where Shepard would've stood in the CIC." He swallowed. "And now you think I'm completely crazy."

"No," EDI said mildly. "Such behaviour does not suggest insanity. Only grief."

"Thanks, doctor." He hesitated, his eyes fixed on the main console screen again. Automatically, part of his mind logged what it meant, the sprawling lines of numbers and the daily adjustment data flooding in piece by piece from engineering. "You know, when they told me she'd woken up, I didn't believe them."

"Why not?"

"I hadn't thought about it. Hadn't wanted to think about it. They didn't tell me the details and I didn't want to know. Hell, EDI. I saw the _Normandy_ coming apart. No one'd come through that."

"You assumed Cerberus had deceived you?"

"No. I don't know. I wasn't sure what – who – I was going to be meeting."

"And?"

He recalled it, the jolting uncertainty of it, how Shepard had stepped through the door and looked _almost_ like herself.

_Armour in all the wrong colours – same as his fatigues, black and white and crisp – and no weapons past a holstered pistol. And marble pale, too pale, the skin stretching tight across her cheekbones and traced with scars, almost bloodless beneath the dark fall of her hair. She paused, staring at him, incredulous and wide-eyed until she grinned. _

"_Joker. Really?" _

"_Really," he echoed. "They didn't tell you?" _

_She shrugged. "Even if they'd wanted to, we were kind of busy getting shot at by mechs." _

"_No rest for the wicked, huh?" _

_Shepard laughed, the sound of it rough, unused somehow. "Nice. You get the brief for today?" _

"_Yeah. Apparently you get to talk contracts with the Illusive Man." _

"_Not how I figured this day going, but then, I didn't figure this day at all." _

"_Hey," he said, uncertain again suddenly, the word catching in his throat. "Stupid question, but are you okay?" _

"_Getting there. Lights are too fucking bright. And don't you dare tell anyone this, but it took me four tries to topple a single mech back there at one point." _

"_Your secret's safe with me, Commander." _

_She must've noticed the way he was looking at her, cautiously, as if he didn't know how to start. _

"_Alright," Shepard said. "What is it?" _

"_It's weird," he said, before he could think better of it. "It's been a long time." _

"_Yeah," she said, her expression softening. "It really has, hasn't it?" _

"_Yeah," he said again, for something to say, anything. _

"_Hey, Joker?" _

"_Yeah, Commander?" _

_She reached out, clasping his hand carefully. "Good to see you again." _

"_You too, Commander." _

"And," Joker repeated, and shrugged. "I don't know. It was her. She looked like hell, but it was her. Sounded like her. Talked like her. Crazy, the way we talk ourselves into thinking something won't work. Can't work."

"_We_ don't," EDI remarked drily.

"Well, there you go, being all perfect again." Joker grinned lopsidedly. "Thanks."

"For what?"

"For listening."

Silently, EDI touched the side of his arm, silver fingers sliding briefly across his sleeve. As gently, the soft pressure of her hand retreated.

"You are welcome. You should go and get some rest."

"You know, you can't pull rank on me," he protested.

"No?"

"Oh, god. I surrender." He rolled his eyes, quietly surprised at how easily he was giving in, how easily he _wanted_ to. "Anything unusual hits comm traffic, you'll let me know?"

"Of course, Jeff."

"Anything happens, anything changes, you'll get me?"

EDI's head tilted to one side. "I am going to pretend that you have already stopped speaking."

He hauled himself out of the chair before he could think himself out of it. He stopped, hesitated a moment longer, and touched the slope of her shoulder, cool and smooth and strange. "Thanks, EDI."

* * *

><p>The door whirred open, and Kaidan stepped into the pristine confines of Udina's office, all white lines and the bright play of the light through the floor-to-ceiling gleam of the windows.<p>

"Major Alenko," the councilor said, standing. "Spectre Alenko, I should say. Come in. You've met Commander Bailey before?"

Kaidan shook his head. His gaze skipped across the clinically tidy desk and to the tall man clad in a C-Sec uniform. "No, I can't say that I have."

"Commander Bailey will be your C-Sec liaison while we work out exactly where you'll be most help," Udina said briskly. "Primarily, I anticipate your early duties being focused on Council safety and reaching out to communities here on the Citadel and elsewhere. Speaking out and letting them know we're not done yet."

Kaidan sat, flattening his hands over his knees. "I'll do what I can to help, Councilor. But I'm not a politician."

"No, Major. But humanity has to know that we have not abandoned them. They have to know that we are thinking about them, speaking about them, speaking about what is happening to them."

"Of course. I understand."

"Commander," Udina said, leaning back in his chair. "Talk the Major through the situation here."

"About what you'd expect if you care to look around any one of the wards right now. Increasing refugee traffic and the thousand and one attendant issues that come with that. Politicians sitting on top of the pile pretending like everything's normal and that our crime rate's not fluctuating _at all_. No offence, Councilor."

"None taken," Udina said frostily.

Bailey smiled crookedly before he added, "We're in a holding pattern of sorts, Major. We get more names and more bodies, and we try and adjust."

"Until you can't ease the limits anymore."

"Exactly. Not going to be pretty when that happens."

"You've seen the news reports," Kaidan said. "You honestly think the only problems we're looking at in the future are emergency housing and food rationing?"

"Not at all," Bailey responded, sharper. "And I know you came here almost straight from Earth, Major. I saw the vids and I'm sorry, I am. But if you're here and not out there, the best you can do is start thinking about the problems that'll start biting us in the ass long before the Reapers ever care to."

Kaidan shoved down a sudden, unexpected flare of resentment. The jarring knowledge of it, the distance, the huge black swathes of space that arced between the Citadel and Earth and he _knew_ it was a snap reaction buried in anger. "I hear what you're saying."

"Alright," Udina said, standing. "Commander, make sure the Major has access to anything he'll need. I'll be keeping in touch with both of you."

"Councilor."

The door hissed shut on Udina's heels. Silence followed, broken when Bailey sighed, and again when Kaidan laid his hands on the desk.

"Guess I should be congratulating you," Bailey said.

"Maybe," Kaidan responded mildly. "I congratulated myself a few times, and then I found out about all the red tape."

"That's the way it goes. I'll ease the way as much as I can for you, but you should know that right now, this is all just politics. You'll be sitting pretty and answering questions."

"I can do that. What else?"

"As a Spectre, you can authorize shortcuts for me."

"Depends on the shortcuts," Kaidan said flatly.

"I get that. I'm talking small things, okaying Alliance requests if they meet your approval. Get people moving through the station as fast as they need. Gets them out of my sightline and makes them someone else's problem."

"Alright," Kaidan said, weighing it, running Bailey's words through his head again. "Send me what you need. No promises."

"None needed." Bailey's eyes sharpened, pale blue and scrutinizing. "You were on the _Normandy_, right?"

"Yeah. Couple of years ago. More, now."

"I remember the clean-up down here after the Presidium got ripped up." Bailey shrugged. "Hell of a thing to see."

"Hell of a thing to be running through when it's getting ripped up," Kaidan countered lightly.

Bailey laughed. "You got me there. Good to meet you, Alenko."

"You too, Commander."

Forty minutes later, Kaidan was back in his rooms, staring at a jarring, indistinct spill of images, all of them crashing into each other, Earth and he couldn't've named the shattered city he was looking at if he'd tried. He checked the additional report, his eyes finding the bare, bleak details of it. Ruins patrolled by Reaper ground troops, methodical and steady and relentless, and then the trembling footage almost broke apart, hazy and full of lumbering shapes.

A brisk addendum laid out provisional analysis, and Kaidan swallowed when he realised he was reading accounts of bodies dragged by the dozen from the rubble.

_Why_, he thought, and immediately concluded, _to turn them, use them, change them. _

Recent colony reports had spelled out the same brittle truth, the dead repurposed and reconfigured and altered.

_Earth_, he thought, and straightened in his chair. He was tired, he realised, the tight strain of it lodged between his shoulders. Tired, he supposed, since he'd left Earth.

Since they'd had to leave.

_The sunlight washed over the carefully-tended green squares of the gardens, the sky above fiercely blue and ribboned with cloud. Kaidan waited, aware of the warmth against his back, his eyes on the vivid red spill of flowers over the wall. He breathed in slowly, the air rolling across his tongue, rich with the scent of last night's rain. _

"_Major?" _

_Kaidan turned, smiling when he saw Councilor Anderson, walking trim and brisk across the white gravel. "Sir. How are you?" _

"_Well enough, Major. My congratulations on the promotion." _

"_Thank you, sir." _

"_How long have you been on the ground?" _

"_Two days, sir. Still enjoying the sunshine." _

"_That's how it goes." Anderson paused, his gaze skipping over Kaidan's shoulder. "You'll be speaking to the defense committee the day after tomorrow." _

"_Of course, sir. Any advice?" _

_Anderson shrugged. "Just talk them through your reports. Start with the Horizon assignment. Keep in anything you want them to hear concerning Cerberus, the Collectors. I trust your judgement, Major." _

_Kaidan nodded. "Thank you, sir." _

"_Try and catch yourself some downtime while you're here. Once you've spoken to the committee, I expect they'll want to throw some questions my way." _

"_Again?" _

"_They're dealing with a lot of unknowns," Anderson admitted. "When you're far enough from what's happening that it all starts to look strange from any angle, all you can do is comb through it." _

"_And how long will that be enough of a response?" He shook his head, reining in the sudden surge of impatience. "Feels like we did this after Sovereign hit the Citadel. And again after the _Normandy_," he said, and swallowed the rest of the words. _

"_True enough," Anderson said, mildly. "But this time they're also wrangling with the idea of an Alliance soldier voluntarily allying with Cerberus." _

"_There's voluntary and there's no options left. Sir." _

"_You think I don't know that?" Anderson shook his head. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, the gesture weary. "I talked it through with her enough times to hear the difference. Looks a hell of a lot different in writing though." _

_He wrestled with himself for a long moment before he asked, "How is she?" _

"_Last I heard? Prickly as all hell but dealing." _

_Kaidan smiled. "Yeah."_

"_It'll work itself out," Anderson said. "If we have time, it'll work itself out." _

_Kaidan nodded, waiting long enough to shake Anderson's hand before he walked away, his feet taking him back through the meticulously groomed spaces of the garden. Trees arched up over white benches, the fanned-out shadows beneath deep and cool and he found himself almost dallying, slowing his pace so he could make his way past the gleaming edge of the shallow pond that ran behind the trees. The water shone there and he found himself lingering, staring down, his thoughts roiling. _

_He thought of Horizon, and the long weeks he'd spent there, debating and negotiating and outright battling the settlers, the Alliance marks on his armour a barrier. He thought of the way the impossible had happened, finally and absurdly, the _Normandy's _shuttle settling on the landing pad and the colours all in black and white and abruptly he'd realised the rumours – the whispers, the voices of ghosts and hope all tangled together_ – _weren't rumours at all. _

_He thought of how he'd walked away, how he'd framed the words and heard himself saying them, how he'd told himself afterwards it was the only choice. Cerberus colours and a Cerberus ship and he could not wrap his thoughts around it the right way. _

_Time, he thought, was probably something they were running out of, and fast. _

Kaidan reached for the next datapad, his gaze darting across names and numbers. Another system, another set of worlds, and even before he'd started reading he knew what he'd find. Cities torn open and handfuls of survivors picking their way through the remnants and sending desperate distress calls off-planet to someone, anyone, anyone who might hear and respond.

Briskly, he reached for the comm button. "Yes," he said. "Alenko here. I'm going over the Dekuuna reports."

He waited through the response, and through another brief exchange before he said, "Yes. Authorise additional support."

* * *

><p>The shift roster rolled soundlessly over into the night cycle, and Garrus discovered himself pacing his way down past the CIC. When he closed his eyes, he could feel it still moving, the floor that was made of the empty, untenanted hulks they'd explored on Despoina. Still as if he could feel it, the lurching sway of the dead ship as it slewed against the grey waves.<p>

_Stupid, _he thought, and shook himself before he ducked into the elevator.

He found his way into the rec room, deserted this late. He was halfway to silently choosing between shadow sparring and wrangling with the weights when he heard the door slide open behind him.

"Hey," Shepard said, mildly. "Crucial midnight training?"

"Always," Garrus responded. "You finish up in the briefing room?"

"Yeah, Traynor finally got me through to Hackett. Comms kept dropping out."

"What was his take?"

"First time I've heard him sound slightly impressed at the thought of a thousand pages of incoming reports." Shepard shrugged. "He's with us on how this alters our perception of the Reapers."

She'd scrubbed up, he noticed, the short mop of her hair glossy and still damp, water droplets at her temples, and the fatigues below creased but clean.

"But?"

"But that's all theoretical. Fascinating, maybe useful, turns what we know on its head."

"But not going to help when you're running up against something that's several kilometers tall," Garrus said, tipping his head in acknowledgement. "Yeah. I get it. Anything else?"

"Not much new," she answered. "Recruiting lines still going strong."

"And what's the bad part?"

Almost idly, she smiled. "That obvious?"

"A little."

"We've got rookies being shoved through training so damn fast I'd be surprised if their asses aren't lit on fire."

Garrus paused. "_Too_ fast?"

"I don't know," she answered. "I'm not sure if I'm picking apart what he said because I want to find something wrong there. And yeah, I can sit back from it and think, hey, yes. This is a crisis. More guys with guns is a good thing."

"Crisis is such an underwhelming word."

"It is, isn't it?"

"You're really bothered?"

"I don't know," she said, in that spare, unguarded way he knew meant nothing but raw truth. "Think I'm filing that one under _worry later_."

"That list could get very long very fast."

"It could." She paused, one hand still curled against the door frame. "I think it has. Hey, Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

He'd started to shake his head before she added, "And no, don't tell me it's fine. Leviathan – the water - it shook me. Really shook me and then I took it out on you."

"I'm tough. I've had worse."

"Not the point."

"So what is?"

"The point is I'm sorry."

"Well. You were just talking to the apex species. Dropping back down a few rungs to talk to me must've been a sacrifice."

She coughed, and it turned into a spluttering laugh. "Very funny."

She crossed the floor, sinking onto the bench beside him. She reached for his wrist and tugged and he responded, sitting.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Garrus answered. He shifted so that he could lean the side of his head against the top of hers. He breathed her in, soap and clean skin and damp brush of her hair against his teeth. "I know we do stupid things all the damn time, but hell, Shepard."

"_We_ do?" she replied archly.

"You know what I mean. Crazy, really. You can chase yourself in circles thinking about it."

She found his hand, sliding her fingers through his. "Part that gets me? I never know until afterwards which one's going to get its claws in me."

"Yeah. I know what you mean." He tilted his head slightly, mouthing at her hair. "But, you know. We're good at what we do. Well, I'm better."

"Sure you are, turian."

"I think of something happening to you, and it stops me breathing."

"Garrus," she said, softly.

"No, I know. It's stupid."

"No, it's not," she said, smiling slightly. "Maybe we can work out some kind of comparison thing. What counts, what doesn't. Shields out, getting winged. I mean, I'm nearly always black and blue from falling off shit."

Whatever irreverent words he'd wanted failed. "You know what I mean?"

"Yes," she said, and as fiercely, her arms were around him, sliding up his shoulders and gripping hard. "_Yes_. So I'm holding you to the same damn thing."

"Okay," he said, and the breath left his throat in a rush. "I trust you. More than anything I trust you."

"Yeah, but your mind's a slippery place when it wants to fuck you over."

"Damn, Shepard. Never let it be said that you don't have a dazzling way with words."

"You know what I mean."

"You know," he said, almost ruefully. "I think that I do."

She leaned into his shoulder and he held her, lifting her closer so that she was sitting across him, her knees dropping either side of his waist.

"You know," she said, and he was sure she was deliberately echoing him. "Not sure this cuts it for acceptable public behaviour."

"Now you grow a conscience?"

Shepard laughed. "And here I was expecting the argument that the _Normandy_'s hardly public property."

"That, too," Garrus said, sighing the words against the side of her neck. He could feel the warmth there, pulsing and rhythmic and alive. "And the fact that it's midnight. Or whatever passes for midnight around here."

"Commander?" Traynor's voice, slightly hesitant over the comm, and tired.

Shepard bowed her head against Garrus' shoulder and he felt her laughing again, silently, the motion shaking through him.

"Here, Traynor. What can I do for you?"

"Late transmission, Commander. Sorry."

"No problem. Go ahead."

"Got an incoming call from a turian military vessel, Commander. Bounced a fair way to us and I get the impression they've had as much trouble with their comms as we have."

"Makes sense."

"I've spoken to their operative," Traynor said, and Garrus was sure suddenly that her voice lightened. "Channel keeps breaking up, but she says her name's Solana Vakarian."

Garrus went rigid, his hands tightening against Shepard's hips.

"She's asking to speak to Officer Vakarian, or whatever name he's going under these days. Her words, Commander," Traynor added blandly.

"No problem, Traynor. Thanks. I'll send him up."

Garrus swallowed, his tongue catching against the roof of his mouth.

"Garrus," Shepard said, very gently, as he'd suspected she would – _as he'd hoped she would_ – and tugged his head down. She pressed her mouth against the side of his, her tongue touching the edges of his teeth before she pulled away. "Go. Go talk."

"Yeah," he managed. He was aware of her moving, rolling off him and onto the bench. "Yeah. You want to give me twenty minutes and then come find me?"

Her eyes lifted and met his, dark and level. "You sure?"

"Sure," he answered immediately. "Provided the ship doesn't get attacked and the comms don't break up."

"The ship's shiny and Traynor's good."

"She is."

"Garrus," she said, and flicked his shoulder lightly. "Go. I'll find you."


	46. Crossroads

_As always, such a huge thank you to everyone who's following this story. Your support means so much. Bioware owns nearly everything, and reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Forty-Six – Crossroads **_

Garrus keyed the door open, his gaze jumping across to the vidcomm console before he was inside the room. Above, the image was juddering and uneven and even so, he could see that his sister was eying him wryly.

"Hey," Garrus said quietly. "You okay?"

"Still breathing."

"Breathing's good."

"What about you?" Solana asked.

He could hear the long drag of the distance, blurring the edges of her words. She lifted one hand, and he could've sworn she had new scars there, travelling up and under her sleeve.

"Breathing," he said uselessly. "Shit. I'm sorry. I had a thousand things I wanted to say."

"And then they all run away from you when it counts, right?"

"Yeah."

She tipped her head to one side, scrutinizing him. "Okay. Fill in the gap between you being on Menae and you being on the _Normandy_."

"Shepard needed to talk to the Primarch, landed on Menae, shot some Reaper troops with me, and General Corinthus let me go because I can be really convincing when I want to be."

Solana laughed. "You actually made that sound boring."

"Hey, every day looked the same down there."

"Up here too," she said, softer.

"What's your briefing?"

"We're bolstering the fleet," she said, her teeth clicking together sharply. "Or we are the fleet. Changes by the day."

"Holding?"

"Holding as well as we can." She nodded and added, "Ground reports from Palaven say they're pushing through. Reapers hit back though, and they hit hard."

"It's a numbers game," Garrus said bitterly.

"If it isn't, it will be soon. They're deadlocked down there, and we're not much better up here. Holding, sure. Changing anything? Couldn't say." Solana tugged ruefully at one sleeve cuff before her eyes locked on his again. "So. Shepard found you."

Garrus groaned. "I know that tone. What aren't you saying?"

Her teeth flashed in a teasing smile. "What haven't _you_ been saying?"

"And here I thought my personal life stopped being interesting to you when I was about seventeen."

"You're so bad at evading."

He shrugged and answered, the simple truth rolling off his tongue. "Then, yes. Whatever you thought I was hiding, I guess you were right. We're together."

"Didn't think you were hiding anything," she said, and he thought she sounded curiously wistful. "It was more how careful you were, talking about the _Normandy_. What you didn't say as much as what you did. Are you alright?"

The unexpected softness in her voice stopped the breath in his throat. "Yes," he said. "We are. We both are."

"Good."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and locked his hands around the rail. "Got any good news?"

"Damn, Garrus. You always want the tough option, don't you?" Her smile returned, brief and bright. "We got krogan troops coming in on the ground, authorized all the way from the Primarch."

"Good," he said, breathing the word out.

"Something about a decision made way too fast that could've gone very badly wrong?" Solana said blandly. "Something about wrangling with political leaders and hoping like hell it worked?"

"Stop screwing around, Sol," he said mildly. "If you know that much, you know I was there."

"Yeah. Primarch Victus forwarded a report. With all the important details scrubbed out, I guess, but enough to know you were running around getting yourself in trouble."

"It worked out in the end," he protested.

"Hey," she said, her gaze finding his, fierce and level. "Least you're getting something done."

"And you're not?" He shook his head. "No. Not fighting about _that_. Not now."

"Yeah. Sorry." She hesitated, her feet shifting slightly. "What about you?"

"You want the short and ugly version?"

"Sure. Then after that you tell me if you're okay or not."

Garrus laughed, the sound of it clipped and terse. "I'm okay."

"Garrus."

"I'm okay," he repeated, and he saw something ease in her eyes. "Really. Can't say it was easy, walking away from Menae. But here, yeah. Here I can do something useful."

"And the short and ugly version?"

"Is that we're apparently going to convince anyone and everyone who'll listen to all point their guns the way we want them."

Solana grinned. "Going well so far?"

"Tuchanka as a test case wasn't so bad. Now, building this Prothean weapon, well. I'll have to get back to you on that," he said drily.

"Yeah. Heard about that. Lot of chatter."

"Good or bad?"

"Depends on the day," she said, and shrugged. "And, shit. You know what they sound like. Take down a Reaper transport and suddenly it's all about how we can win this thing ourselves. Have a rough landing on Menae and back up, and all I hear is about this damn Prothean weapon."

Despite himself, Garrus smiled. "Sounds about right."

"You heard from Dad?"

Garrus snapped his mouth shut. "No," he admitted. "I've been trying."

"He's still on Palaven," Solana said.

"You tell him he's too stubborn for his own good and that he needs to get out?"

"Yeah, and then he told me he's where he's useful," she said ruefully.

Briefly, he considered saying something irreverent about dominant family traits and obstinate decisions. "Hey, look," he said instead. "I'll keep at it, but if you hear his voice before I do, just tell him I'm – tell him I hope he's okay."

Solana's gaze narrowed, raking across him. "Okay," she said eventually, her tone neutral. "You know I miss you, right?"

"No, you don't," he retorted, with little sting in his voice. "Sol. We've spent years avoiding each other."

"Yeah, but avoiding each other when there isn't a galactic war going on feels different."

"When you put it like that," he said. He was unable suddenly – _suddenly and frantically and why the hell did his gut feel like this, all churned up_ – to dredge up the right words. "Stay safe, alright?"

"I'll try. We're running escort duty down to Palaven tomorrow."

"Down to the surface?" he demanded, sharper than he planned.

"Orders. We've got rations dropping in for our ground forces and we need them to make the distance."

"Yeah," he said. Awkwardly, he rubbed at the locked strain in one shoulder. "I get it."

"Not all of us get to pick and choose our assignments the way you do," she said mildly.

"Yeah, yeah."

"So." Solana paused, her eyes fixing on his before they darted away again, as if she was mapping out the details of how he was standing, the tilt of his head, the way he was waiting. As if she was locking him into her memory and abruptly he didn't want to follow that thought through to its brittle, jarring conclusion.

"So," Garrus echoed.

"So are you going to tell me more about what you did on Tuchanka?"

* * *

><p>Shepard swung her gear locker shut and silently wondered whether she should bother checking the time. It was uneven, she knew, the way the awareness of a mission left you, the way it bolstered you up and then lurched away, suddenly, the exhaustion it left behind sometimes shocking.<p>

Hours before, she'd been staring through the mech's shining canopy at the thing that they called Leviathan, the vast bulk of it filling the sea and filling her sight and when it spoke, filling her head.

Absently, she slouched on the end of the bed, one hand smoothing over the messy sheets they'd left, rumpled up on one side against the pillows. She sat, one foot on the floor and the other curled under herself, listening to the nighttime thrum of the ship, the strange rhythmic hush that always seemed to veil half the daily cycle.

She remembered years ago, back when her armour hadn't had an N7 stamp, and back when she'd found herself sitting surrounded by vacant chairs and wondering why the hell she couldn't sleep.

_Couldn't sleep and trying only made her more aware of how much sleep she _wasn't_ going to get and she'd ended up back in the ready room._

It was a clean-up op, she recalled, and smiled slightly. By the numbers and simple enough, once they got down planetside and worked out just who they were meant to be firing at.

_ The clock ticked around and around again, and somewhere in between minutes, she drifted into sleep, patchy and uncertain. Footsteps against the floor woke her, jolting her out of something that hadn't quite been a dream. _

_ "Shepard?" _

_ "Yeah," she answered, automatically. "Sorry, sir. Got up early." _

_ "Bullshit you did," her sergeant replied. "Couldn't sleep?"_

_ "Sorry, sir."_

_ "Don't be sorry. Just don't be letting your focus slip once we get down there." _

_ "No, sir." _

It had been hectic on the ground, she remembered – _or it had seemed to be_ – the air all hazed with smoke and the crackle of gunfire and the lid of the grey sky above. Chaotic and over faster than she'd guessed, and then the rushing elation had hit – _she was still alive, the blood roaring in her head, her armour scuffed and battered but she wasn't bleeding through it - _and it had kept her awake until they swung into the ship again and then the exhaustion had surged up and caught her all at once.

_She stumbled against the side of the wall and steadied herself, her gloved hand sliding. _

_ "Shepard. Okay?" _

_ She swallowed down another breath. "Always okay, sir." _

_ Her sergeant grinned, the movement shifting the quarried lines on his face. "Good to hear. Talk me through it." _

_ "Shields held up. Bruised, not bleeding. Scared shitless for a while." _

_ "Define a while." _

_ "The two seconds before I realised my aim was better." _

_ He laughed, the sound rough with fatigue. "Okay. Good. Thoughts?" _

_ "Sir?" _

_ "Wrong answer. I asked you what you thought." _

_ She swiped sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. A brisk survey of the terrain ahead gave her sloping stone walls and uneven ground, slicked with puddles and churning to mud. Trees fringed on both sides, heavy and dense with leaves, dripping dew and a bitch to slog between. _

_ "We've cut them down by half," she said. When her sergeant frowned, she added, "From what info we were handed, anyway. I'd be assuming intel half-assed it, and not because they meant to. Because we're on a rock in the middle of nowhere and our last reports date to four days before we landed. Lot of time to get a new crew in, if you're snappy." _

_ "Go on," he said. _

_ "So I'd be combing forward slow and steady. They hit us hard. Not hard enough to break us, but hard enough that I'm still feeling it." _

_ "So?" _

_ "So we move two by two until we clear the treeline. Weather's turning to shit while we stand here. Can't hide if the ground's giving you away." _

_ Her sergeant nodding, still smiling. "And if they have shuttles? Transports to get them off-planet as we're coming at them?" _

_ "I might be wrong, sir, but I'm pretty sure I logged a nice handful of grenades and at least one rocket launcher." _

_ "Messy," her sergeant said in that speculative, thoughtful tone that she knew meant she had to finish the rest of his words. _

_ "If needed. If we push forward now, we'll catch them minutes after they hit the end of the treeline." _

_ "That your thorough, thought-out and all corners caught plan, Shepard?" _

_ "Well," she said, and grinned wildly. "Didn't say that, sir. Just a thought or two, that's all." _

Shepard ambled her way off the bed, paused long enough to check that her boots were buckled, shoved a hand through her hair and tapped the keypad. Later she stepped out of the elevator and discovered the main deck close to untenanted, workstations dimly lit and the console banks behind humming steadily.

Before she cleared the corner into the comm room, she heard someone say, "No. Calling bullshit on that."

"It's true," Garrus responded mildly.

"All of it? Including the thresher maw?"

"Hey," Garrus said. "It's not like we _planned_ the thresher maw part. It just happened that way."

Shepard bit back a grin and leaned against the archway. "Comms holding up?"

Garrus turned, his blue eyes sparkling. "Shepard, hey. This is my sister, Solana."

Shepard nodded, noting the rangy similarity between them, the way Solana was standing, coiled and almost predatory, the tilt of her head incisive.

"Good to meet you," Shepard said. "Can I ask how Palaven's looking?"

"Rough," Solana answered. "And it's good to meet you, Commander. You know that weird part where you're sure you've seen someone's face splashed all over news vids when you finally talk face to face?"

Shepard found herself smiling, easily and unguardedly. "Anyone ever tell you you talk like your brother?"

"That's a compliment?" Solana's expression shifted, fading. "I heard what happened to Earth, Commander. I'm sorry. And I guess you've been hearing that from anyone and everyone."

"It still matters. So, thank you." Shepard crossed her wrists over the rail. "And the thresher maw part? Yeah, it happened like that."

"That's crazy."

"It was a pretty crazy day. I wouldn't recommend it as a reliable use of strategy, though."

Solana laughed. "I'll take that on board. Can I ask you something, Commander?"

"Go ahead."

"This – this thing you're doing. This plan. Pulling us all together. Going to work?"

"Do you mean do I believe it'll work or do I just hope it'll work?" Shepard shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know. Can we do it? Yeah, I think we can. Will we have time? Will we get there without tearing each other down before the Reapers do? That's the part I can't see through."

"Yeah," Solana said, her shoulders shifting under her fatigues. "I understand. I also wish the honest answer was the same as the easy answer."

"You and me both."

"Okay. I guess that's it."

When Solana's gaze skipped to Garrus and held on him, wavering, Shepard understood. Farewells that you couldn't quite frame as a farewell, not really, because that would mean swallowing the shattering truth of it. Farewells that had to be buried under the shapes and sounds of words that ran into each other, platitudes as useful as empty air.

"So, you'll keep yourself safe?" Solana said. "You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean," Garrus answered. "And yes. I will. You'll keep checking in on Dad for me?"

"Sure. I'll even tell him he's in trouble, if you like."

Garrus groaned. "Please don't. I'd never hear the end of it."

"Good point." Solana straightened up, locking her hands together. "Commander Shepard. Hope we can hold things together long enough here for this plan of yours to work out."

Fiercely, Shepard said, "They push at you, you kick back. As fast and as hard as you can."

"I hear you. Hey, Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Stay breathing," Solana said. She moved, reaching forward, and the vidcomm field crumpled and broke apart into empty air.

Wordlessly, Shepard leaned the side of her head against Garrus' shoulder.

"That was more like forty minutes."

"You know how time runs away with you," Shepard replied blandly.

"Sure it did." He shifted, hooking one arm around her waist. "Thanks."

For long moments she stood there, listening to the tempo of his breathing. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said roughly. "Just strange, I guess."

"I get it. It's tough to talk through something that's jumping all over the place."

"Yes. One minute we're talking about something annoying she did to me years ago, and then the next I'm asking about troop deployments on Menae."

She pressed her face into the arch of his shoulder, smiling when he responded, the edges of his mouth catching against her hair.

"Tired?" Garrus asked.

"You know when it finally hits you? Well, I think it finally hit me."

"Getting old, Shepard," he said teasingly.

"Screw you, Vakarian."

"You can do that later."

She laughed. "You're so romantic sometimes."

His arm tightened around her, his hand latching hard over her hip. "I have my moments."

* * *

><p>The afternoon brought a change in the arrival lists streaming across Kaidan's console screen. Funneled up through C-Sec, the data was usually typical, lists packed full of refugee ships and hobbled Alliance crafts with nowhere else to dock first and diplomatic transports often angling for a Council audience. Kaidan blinked, scrubbed his hand through his hair, and checked again, noting that he was looking at close to double the usual refugee numbers.<p>

Mostly human, he found, once he'd combed through the attending information. Ships all clustered together for survival, he guessed, and wondered where they'd come from. How far they'd had to fight to keep their ships intact, pointed at the Citadel because there might not be anywhere else to go.

It changed by the week – _by the day_ – up here, he knew, the docks always thronged and busy, far busier than he remembered from a few scant years ago.

An hour later he was staring at the tail-end of another report, docks chatter for the most part, half of it slow turnaround complaints from Alliance squads and the rest of it dredged up from incoming civilian questioning. Kaidan sighed, leaned on the comm button and waited.

"Bailey here," came the brisk response.

"Commander Bailey, Alenko."

"What can I do for you?"

"Seems I might need a favour."

"A favour or a shortcut?"

Kaidan smiled despite himself. "A favour. I'm seeing Cerberus in my reports a lot. Name turns up a lot in comm reports as well, going in and out of the Citadel."

"Well, yeah." Bailey coughed before he added, "Half the damn human refugees we get come from some or other colony that Cerberus has had their eye on. Add that to the wretched rep they've been getting lately."

"Yeah, I get that."

"Alliance is hitting back at them, last I heard."

"Yeah," Kaidan echoed, and briefly wondered if he was clutching at smoke. He'd seen the vids and read the mop-up reports, and still he wondered if he was latching onto it, the name, _Cerberus_, because it was too damn easy not to.

_This late, the briefing room was quiet, the lights too sharply bright overhead. Shepard leaned against the table, her face uneven with shadows when she turned. _

_ "So," she said, low-toned. "Toombs get his escort okay?" _

_ "Well as he could," Williams answered, as hushed. "But shit, Commander." _

_ "Yeah, that's close to my appraisal, too." _

_ "I mean, is it true?" Williams shrugged. "I mean, what's worse?" _

_ Shepard shrugged. "Toombs' mind is all scrambled up, I'll give you that." _

_ "But it sure sounded like he knew what he was saying," Kaidan said. _

_ "Yes. Yes, it did." Shepard shifting, moving so that she was perched on the edge of the table, boots planted flat. "You hear things all the time, right? Rumours, words, secrets that no one really gives credit to." _

_ "But?" Kaidan asked. _

_ "But then you walk into the name Cerberus one too many times and wonder just what it means." She sighed. "And right now, I don't know what it means, not properly. I know we have to keep moving." _

_ "And if we run into them again?" _

_ "Then we do what we did today and shut them down." _

But then years later – _only two, he supposed, the fog of the months giving way too fast to years – _he'd been ordered to Horizon, and there he'd fielded rumours of Cerberus and Collectors until they had collapsed into each other. He remembered the poised stillness of the day, the blue lid of the sky glassy and untenanted.

He remembered how it had changed, brutally fast and the air abruptly full of that wild rasping noise that he'd learned meant Collectors.

"So what's your thinking, Major?"

Kaidan shivered, jolting out of his thoughts. "I'm not sure," he answered. "Feels like I'm seeing patterns where there aren't any."

"Happens to the best of us."

"What happens when someone walks through incoming processing with Cerberus affiliations?"

"You mean if we even find out that much?" Bailey sighed. "Alright. I know we got Cerberus sympathizers down there, but that doesn't mean I can turn them away. They're all lumped with the rest of the good guys."

"As it were," Kaidan muttered sourly, startling himself.

"Sympathisers are loud, Major. They're the stupid bastards who get themselves beaten up in the bar because they say the wrong thing to someone who's not the same shape as they are. They might shout long and hard in the overnight cells that their loyalties are with Cerberus, but it means flat-out bullshit for the most part."

"Yeah." Kaidan scrubbed a hand over his face. He leaned back in the chair, his gaze skipping from the desk to the wall-spanning windows, gleaming and full of light. "What about the quiet ones?"

"Humans? More likely to be Blue Suns affiliates. Using the Citadel as a staging post before moving on. Been used that way by damn near every species, I'd reckon."

"Yes," Kaidan said absently. He hesitated, aware of Bailey's crisp silence. "What are you seeing most days?"

"From the gutter down here, you mean?" Bailey laughed, the sound short and terse. "Might sound strange to you, Spectre Alenko, but it's much the same. There's just more of it. Numbers coming through the gates are my problem, not necessarily whatever political bullshit they're spouting."

"Too much more of it?"

"You'd rather we start turning people back?"

"I didn't say that." Kaidan clicked his mouth shut. He was tired, he realised, his nerves all frayed at the edges and hemmed in by the white walls and the meticulous lines of the windows. His orders were locked in and he understood, but the slow, sapping impatience had lodged itself in his gut. "Sorry, Commander. I'll let you get back to it."

"Take care, Major."

Kaidan planted his hands flat on the desk, the strain at the back of his neck easing slightly. He wasted another thirty minutes going over the last of the day's reports before surrendering. He checked the time again before pushing upright and making his way out into the high-roofed corridors outside. Bright and flooded with light and not for the first time, he thought of the absurd, pristine fragility of it all.

At Councilor Udina's office he waited, one hand hovering over the keypad, before the door whirred open. He discovered the Councilor leaning over his desk, eyes fixed on his console.

"Alenko?"

"You wanted to see me, sir."

"Yes." Udina sat heavily, motioning Kaidan to the other chair. "Are you following the news from Earth?"

"I'd hesitate to call it _news_, sir. But, yes."

"I agree." Udina's face stayed blank, his eyes ringed with shadows. "When it started – on Earth – when it started, they destroyed our satellites, tore our ships apart and went after the old nuclear silos."

"Yes," Kaidan said carefully.

"And now they're herding us. Turning our major cities into prison camps and wiping us out by the hundred."

"Admiral Anderson's reports suggest a ground-based resistance movement is gaining ground and growing."

"By running," Udina said.

"By surviving," Kaidan said, his voice sharper than he'd intended.

"Yes." Udina exhaled, his expression softening. He pushed a datapad across the desk. "Now. Six days, Major. You'll be running security."

Kaidan scooped the datapad up, flicking it on in the same motion. A brisk glance showed him ward outlines, a guest list, and a brief introduction to whatever security personnel Udina'd cleared. "Occasion?"

"More media," Udina said flatly. "We'll be giving space for various representatives to talk about the war, the Reapers, refugee numbers, whatever."

"Talk."

"That's what we do here, Major, in case you hadn't quite noticed."

Kaidan pushed back a sudden surge of anger. The rigid tension in his neck was back, he realised, knotting at the base of his skull. "You'll be there, sir?"

"Yes."

"And the rest of the Council?"

"Doubtful," Udina muttered. "One human Spectre reinstated and another one created and apparently humanity's meant to acknowledge their overwhelming gratitude to us."

"They're saying nothing different?"

"Apologies and _maybe later_. Keep that up and maybe later will be the epitaph on the grave of eleven billion souls."

* * *

><p>A slow morning found Shepard in the rec room, sweat clinging to her lips and the insistent burn of exertion lining her shoulders with each punch that landed in the hanging bag. She paused, adjusting her stance slightly, before she picked up her rhythm, faster strokes snapping against the bag.<p>

The door whirred open behind her. She turned, vaguely surprised when EDI glided through, soundless.

"Hey, EDI. What can I do for you?"

EDI paused, her head tilting to one side. Almost, Shepard thought, as if she was uncertain or apprehensive, which, Shepard silently concluded, was probably absurd.

"You are not currently busy?"

"I'm just beating the hell of this poor, unfortunate and defenseless punching bag. So no," she added, lightly. "Not at all."

"I wondered if we might speak."

"Course." She turned properly, rolling her shoulders.

"I wondered if we might speak about Jeff."

Shepard blinked. "Yes, he's always had that awful sense of humour that he has. No, he won't change, and don't go near his mug collection. Sorry, what did you want to ask?"

"Sometimes I find that engaging in discussion with him leads to him hiding behind words." EDI frowned, or seemed to, her expression shifting slightly. "More than usual, I mean."

Shepard nodded slowly. "Yeah. We do that sometimes."

"Why?"

"Sometimes because it's easier. Or seems that way. Or because we try to hide behind bad jokes. Or even good ones, occasionally." Shepard lifted one hand and yanked the glove strap loose. "If you don't mind me asking, what were you talking about?"

"The Reaper invasion, Earth, Cerberus. Your reconstruction."

"Right," Shepard muttered. "Sometimes it takes a while to dig through the stuff that sticks with you."

EDI nodded. "I believe I understand."

"Keep talking," Shepard said. "Even if you're not sure if it's helping, it usually is."

"How is it that you can track the difference?"

"By saying something and hoping it comes out right," she said wryly. She tugged the other glove off. After she'd tossed them both back into the gear locker, she slumped onto the nearest bench. "And sometimes, well. Just being there is enough."

"I see."

"Been meaning to ask. What was it like, those six months in dry-dock?"

"For me?" EDI paused. "It was – odd. Yes. Odd. Jeff came to the ship nearly every day."

Shepard smiled. "Sounds like him."

"And even though we spoke nearly every day, we could not speak properly." EDI's head lifted, her gaze speculative. "Does that make sense?"

"Course it does. You wouldn't've been getting any news on how long you'd be there, either of you. Makes sense that you wouldn't want to risk them finding out that you weren't a VI."

Shepard twisted half upright on the bench, grabbing for a towel. She was aware of EDI's coiled poise, the way her eyes mapped Shepard's motions, the taut stillness in each silvery line of her.

"It is strange to you, still?" EDI asked, slightly wry. "This body?"

"Yeah, a little," Shepard admitted. "Sorry."

"There is no need."

"And, well. The last time I saw it before you decided to repurpose it, it was on fire and trying to kill me."

"Indeed." EDI paused, her head tilting to one side. "We were told – Jeff was told – that the _Normandy_ was to be handed over to Admiral Anderson."

"Yeah, I heard that was the plan. She's a good fit for a mobile command centre, so it made sense."

"And yet he chose to stay."

"Yeah, he did." Shepard flicked the towel over the back of her neck again. "Damn hard, watching him walk back into it. I know why he did it, but hell. I guess I don't know how long he can keep it going."

"As long it can be kept going, I suspect," EDI said fiercely. "Admiral Anderson has a history of adapting military strategy in tenacious and calculating ways."

"That's my assessment as well," Shepard said. "Anderson's not stupid. He'll know to dig deep and move fast. Keep himself away from the larger urban spreads until he really has to."

"Yes." EDI nodded. "I'm sorry, Commander. I'm taking up too much of your time."

"Not at all. That's what I'm here for. Unless, you know, I'm currently in the middle of a firefight or something equally distracting."

EDI's mouth curved into a smile. "Thank you, Shepard."

"Okay, I have to ask. Why come all the way down here to see me? I mean, actually see me. You know what I mean."

"I have observed that the crew, if they wish to speak to me, often come up to the CIC, even if they can address me from any point on the ship. I thought I might do the same occasionally."

Left alone, Shepard slung the towel back onto its hook and silently wondered just what other discussion points might be simmering around in EDI's head. Smiling to herself, she ambled her way back up to the loft deck. There, she discovered Garrus at the desk, glaring down at the glow of a datapad.

"Bad news?"

"There any other kind?" he responded without looking up. "Actually, this is halfway between. Resupply routes between Menae and Palaven. Not great, but holding."

She stepped up behind him, leaning her chin over his shoulder and slinging one arm around him. "And the Reapers?"

"Every alteration we make, they follow, and fast. They're smart."

"Not so smart when they're in pieces."

Garrus laughed, the motion of it shaking his whole frame. "You always know how to cheer me up."

"Of course I do." Shepard kissed the side of his neck, her lips travelling over the rough, pebbled skin there. "Your sister get back to you at all?"

"Dropped a message through yesterday. Likely to be out of communication for a fair while once they hit the surface on Menae."

"She looks like you."

"She does not," he protested.

"You've got the same eyes."

"Yes," he said wryly. "Because we're related, remember?"

Idly, she nudged him. "Very funny."

Garrus tilted his head, nuzzling the side of his face into her hair. "Her squad pulled a handful of survivors off Palaven. Problem is, they're scattering."

"Wouldn't you?"

"Course I would. Far and as fast as I could. I _did_."

"To Menae? You didn't run away. You made a choice."

"Some choice."

Shepard spun his chair around. She laid her hands flat on his thighs and said, "Garrus."

"Yeah." Garrus shook himself, the lines around his eyes easing. "Sorry. That sounded awful, didn't it?"

"Not awful."

His eyes glinted. "Self-pitying?"

"You choose the weirdest moments to pick a word argument, turian."

"Sometimes." He shifted, pulling her closer, so that she was standing between his legs.

"Done with the paperwork?"

"Well," he said, and ran his hands over the slight swell of her hips. "I'm sure I could fit you in somewhere."

Shepard groaned. "Oh, my God. That might be the worst line ever."

"That a complaint, Shepard?"

She grinned and hauled him up and out of the chair. "More a comment."

His hands found the small of her back, gently kneading. "Critic. Bed?"

"Couch is closer."

She tugged him across the floor until he retaliated, scooping her wholesale against his chest while she laughed. Somehow he swayed them both to the couch before letting her go in a spill of disheveled clothes.

Between them, they wrestled with buckles and ties and finally Shepard had her hands on him. She traced the contours of his chest and lower, her fingers wrapping around him and stroking. She rolled on top of him, and for long, teasing moments, she waited, aware of his teeth, lightly grazing her shoulder, and his hands shaking where they cupped her thighs.

"Shepard," he growled.

She laughed, and another rocking motion had her sinking onto him until he filled her.

Afterwards, they stayed like that, tangled and languid and the top of her head nestled under his chin. Garrus combed one hand over the back of her head, almost absently parting the short dark strands.

"Plans for the afternoon?"

"I'm saving the gun battery from whatever state it's currently in."

"You have no faith, Vakarian."

The comm station buzzed, and Traynor said, "Commander? Are you busy?"

Briefly, Shepard considered responding that Traynor's timing was, for once, impeccable. Instead, she responded, "Not right now, Traynor. What's going on?"

"I'm not sure."

Shepard levered herself halfway to upright, her hands planted on Garrus' chest. "Talk me through what you know."

"I've got Councilor Valern on the QEC, Commander."

Shepard paused. "And the rest of the Council?"

"He's not saying. He wants to speak to you. All he'll say to me is that it involves Council security."

"Fair enough. Have him sit on standby and tell him I'll be there in five."

"Of course, Commander."

She glanced back down to Garrus and read her own thoughts on his face. "Yeah," she said. "I'm thinking trouble as well. This _is_ strange, yes?"

"Maybe not, but it's unusual as hell."

She reached for her shirt, bunched up against the back of the couch. "Maybe he wants to make nice and apologise."

"I'm sure you've got a list he can start with."

Shepard snorted. "You know, I'm sure I got told that was called holding grudges."


	47. Fracture

_Still going, even though DA:Inquisition ate my soul for a while there. This chapter is longer than usual, but felt better self-contained. As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following the story. Bioware owns nearly everything.  
><em>

_**Chapter Forty-Seven - Fracture**_

The fierce glare of the overhead lights assailed Kaidan first. He keyed the door closed, wincing. This early, the Spectre offices were untenanted, the rows of consoles humming quietly. He crossed to the first console, pulling up the glow of the keypad. When he tapped in his identification, the screen stayed uselessly blank.

Kaidan blinked, tried again, and found himself staring at the same frozen black square. A third attempt got him the same frustrating results, and after he'd methodically worked his way along the console bank, he frowned. He was halfway back to the door when his comm unit buzzed.

"Alenko."

"Where are you?" Bailey demanded, his voice rough and harried.

"Spectre offices."

"Are you alone? Are you armed?"

Kaidan stopped. Something very like apprehension wormed its way under his skin. "I'm alone, armed and there's armour in the gear lockers here."

"Lock the door and gear yourself up. Get back to me ASAP."

"Every console in here just rejected my access codes. What's going on?"

"Shut up and get back to me," Bailey snapped.

Kaidan shoved back an impatient flare of anger. _Respond_, he thought briskly, and took himself across to the gear lockers. Preparation lead to information which might point him in the direction of answers if he got himself together fast enough, which was something he'd thought had been drummed into his head for years.

Piece by piece, he strapped the armour on, blue and new and gleaming. Gloves last, and after he'd fastened an extra pistol at his waist, he pressed his comm again.

"Talk me through it," he said. Static answered him, broken by the sudden surging roar of gunfire. Shoulders rigid, he waited, one hand locked over the stock of his rifle. "Bailey, this is Alenko. Are you reading me?"

He lasted another minute or so before he was striding towards the door.

"Here," Bailey said, gasping the word out. "Listening?"

"Listening."

"We've got Cerberus troops all over the fucking docks."

The words hit him like a punch to the gut. "How?"

"Not sure yet. Right now, my priorities are little far from investigative analysis," Bailey said, sardonic.

"What else do you know?"

"I know they've taken the docks. I know they're moving through the Citadel, ward by ward."

"You know what they're after?"

"Unless I hear different, I'd be guessing the Council."

Kaidan swallowed. They'd _missed_ it, he thought savagely, they'd _all_ missed it, something, some fragment buried in the intel that they should've seen, should've dug up and kept digging until they'd found who it angled at and why.

"Shit. Alright. I'll head to the Presidium. Can you update me on their location if and when anything changes?"

"Will do," Bailey answered. "You want me to send a squad up to you to keep your ass covered?"

He rolled his shoulders, the muscles there knotted and tight. "No, don't. I'm close enough that I'll likely move faster on my own. Keep your men where they're more useful. What else?"

"Unless something changes fast, assume we're on our own. All transport's suspended, ingoing and out."

"They want us trapped." Kaidan settled the rifle into the crook his shoulder. "Civilians?"

"They're running shit-scared. I've got my guys throwing messages out as and where they can for people to stay in and stay barricaded where possible, but, hell. It's already a mess."

Grimly, Kaidan understood. He remembered how the Presidium had looked those scant years ago, broken apart and littered with the dead. "You'll need to have squads going door-to-door and setting up guard points. It'll minimize casualties, but I'd still be assuming high numbers."

"Yes, Major, because I hadn't thought of that at all," Bailey growled.

"Right." His hand hovered over the keypad. "I'm heading out. Keep in touch."

"Will do. Good luck, Alenko."

"Thanks."

He exhaled slowly, steeling himself. Broad-brush details all too often invited the crippling temptation of guesswork, so he supposed he'd have to run blind until he got himself closer to the Presidium.

The door slid open, revealing nothing more threatening than the empty white wash of the corridor. Kaidan advanced carefully, aware that his heartbeat had already kicked into high gear. The next corner took him around and under an archway, high and open and as deserted. He paused, listening until he heard it, footsteps and the staccato rattle of gunfire, distorted by distance.

Down the sweep of the corridor it was slow going, his skin prickling with the knowledge of just how _exposed_ he was. He ransacked his thoughts until he remembered that the set of rooms beyond would be as hopeless, all airy and high ceilings and if he could scrounge some cover from benches or chairs he'd be lucky. He thumped the next door open and stepped back in the same motion, shoulders pressed against the door.

A quick survey of the room showed him three soldiers – _heavy armour, stamped with the yellow and black Cerberus symbol, and again the anger swirled up, hot and vicious_ – and the bright flare of a console. He felt the surging thrum of his biotics and flung a tangle of energy at them before they turned.

Two of them staggered, flailing. The third whirled and got off one shot, the impact biting into the wall above Kaidan's head. He fired twice before moving, his shields flaring when another round whipped past his shoulder. The third soldier crumpled, hands flying up to the ruin of his throat. Another swirl of energy sent the first man thudding back into the far wall, his head lolling back.

Desperately, he threw himself further, still moving, under he was half-hidden behind a bench. He twisted halfway to upright, sighted and fired, the impact tearing another one of them off his feet. Kaidan's follow-up shot punched through the soldier's visor, toppling him. As quickly, he straightened and fired again, close-quarters and into the first soldier's head.

His hands were shaking where they were clamped around the rifle.

"Alenko?"

"Bailey," he managed, and tasted sweat on his lips.

"You okay?"

"Just got reminded it's a hell of a long time since I did solo recon."

"Take it slow and careful."

"I hear that."

He unlatched his fingers and as carefully, he tempered the uneven rhythm of his breathing. He needed himself moving fast and quiet, and blundering about with the blood pounding loud enough in his ears to deafen himself was only going to run him into trouble all the faster.

He remembered Mars, and how Cerberus had already been there, buried and waiting, veiled well enough that Liara'd missed them, they'd _all_ missed them.

"_Any ideas?" _

"_On exactly who might have been with Cerberus?" Liara shook her head, her lips thinning. "I'm not sure." _

"_Who'd you speak with?" Shepard asked. "Science team, security?" _

"_Pleasantries for the most part," Liara said, drily. "The science team would have had access to my findings on the Prothean data. And it's certainly not a secret that I was with you on the _Normandy_." _

"_No." Shepard shoved gloved fingers through her hair, sweat-spiked and disheveled. "Sorry. Been a long couple of days." _

"_I understand." Liara pulled one of the chairs out and sat, her usual grace marred by tiredness. "I'll forward any personnel data you're interested in once we get out of here." _

_Shepard grinned lopsidedly. "If it'll help." _

"_Which it probably won't. I'm sorry. My mind's all over the place." _

"_Yours and mine both." _

_With his shoulders against the locked door, Kaidan listened, aware of the tension in his joints, aware of how stiltedly they were all talking. Talking as if there wasn't anything to do to fill the silence, anything else they could do. _

"_Alright." Shepard pushed upright. "Let's keep moving." _

"_Look, Shepard," he said, and the instant the words rolled off his tongue he regretted them. They'd already snapped and growled at each other since the shuttle had touched down onto the windswept plateau outside, and part of him understood. _

_Earth and how they had left. _

_Horizon, and how he had walked away. _

_The space of the months and how he didn't know where to begin and he supposed it began with asking how she was – who she was, some treacherous thought prodded – but the words got clogged in his throat. _

"_We've already been over everything I know," Shepard said coolly. "Which is very little. My response is still the same. Cerberus got in their usual way. Infiltration, bribes, insiders. I'm pretty sure I told you that last time you asked."_

"_Yeah. You did." He turned, needing something else to look at, his gaze dropping to the security feed consoles. Three were blank, one frozen and the fifth jolting and uneven. He frowned. "Liara? Recognise her?" _

_Liara glanced past him. Unconcerned, she answered, "That's Doctor Eva Coré. She arrived recently." _

Twenty-five tortuous minutes took Kaidan through the warren of high-roofed corridors. More than once he edged around the smouldering wreckage of consoles and three times he paused when the clamour of combat swelled too loud and too close. Rising steps ahead offered him nothing more than awkward sightlines and the needling awareness that he'd be boxing himself in if he rushed it.

He combed his way up the steps carefully, always listening, and his gaze always locked on the open expanse of the walls above. When he was inches away from the last step, the wild thrum of his biotics surged up. Another step took him around the corner and the sweep of blue energy toppled three Cerberus soldiers. Two methodical rounds from the rifle and another crackling tangle from his biotics kept them prone and lifeless.

"Bailey," he said. "You there?"

"Christ almighty, you have bad timing."

"I'm sure. What it's looking like where you are?"

"They're dug into C-Sec HQ. I've got my guys forming up."

"You're going in?"

"We have to," Bailey growled. "I need to get my hands on the comms in there, and I can't do that as long as these bastards have me locked out. Where are you?"

"ETA five minutes or so." He hesitated. "It's strange."

"Strange isn't good right now."

"I know." It was a hunch, he knew, and one grappled from a hurtled hour or so of patchy information.

"Alright. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm hitting small groups, no more. I'm thinking your men will be up against the weight of their soldiers."

"Not making sense. What's so important about keeping HQ sealed?"

"It's a diversion. A tactic. Keep the focus off the Council."

"Where are you going with this?"

Kaidan swallowed, the inside of his mouth sandy. "Shit. I don't know. It just feels off."

"Whole fucking day is off, Major."

Kaidan laughed, surprising himself. "You're not wrong. Alenko out."

* * *

><p>"Still nothing." The skin between Joker's shoulders tightened and he slapped his hand down beside the main comm. "Unless, you know, everyone at the Alliance docks has decided it'd be hilarious to pretend they can't hear me."<p>

"That is unlikely," EDI remarked.

"Yeah. Tell me about it." He plucked at the back of his cap, not quite able to banish the burrowing uncertainty that had taken up residence somewhere in his chest.

"Other docking areas?"

"I've tried dipping in and out. I'm getting static and I'm getting silence." He waited another half-second before asking, "Hey, Shepard? You around?"

"In the armoury," she responded immediately. "Nearly good to go. How's it looking?"

"You're not going to like it."

"Is the Citadel being torn apart by Reapers as we speak?"

"Not unless they're doing it from the inside," he retorted. "I can't raise comms with anyone. Alliance, C-Sec, trade docks."

"Thoughts?"

"I think we're locked out," Joker admitted. "EDI's sure it's not a problem from our side."

"Station-wide?"

"Looks like, unless I get something in the next ten minutes telling me otherwise."

"Well, looks like our day just got a lot more interesting. Be up there soon."

The comm station clicked off, and Joker turned his attention back to the rippling glow of the main console.

"Getting visuals," he muttered, almost to himself. "Shit."

"Yes, I see it," EDI said. "No traffic."

"No." For another perturbed moment he stared at the empty swathes of space arcing between the ward arms. "This is the SSV _Normandy_, requesting docking clearance."

The Citadel filled the main screen, silent and glittering. Joker reached over, easing the main thrusters down a little, letting the ship coast gently. He'd need the room, he reckoned, if whatever was going on down there went south even faster than he thought. He scanned the untenanted blackness for movement, any movement, any hint that might let him know just _how_ leashed down the Citadel might be right now.

"How long have we been sitting here? And not down to nanoseconds, genius."

"Fifteen minutes," EDI answered.

"Fifteen minutes and there's nothing in the sky." Almost absently, he repeated the docking request.

"…_Normandy_? Systems Alliance?" The voice was heavy, uneven with harried breathing.

Joker jolted forward in his chair. "_Normandy_ here."

"You have Commander Shepard with you?"

Joker blinked, ran the words and the voice through his head again, and blurted, "_Thane?_ I mean, Thane Krios? Really?"

"Flight Lieutenant Moreau," the assassin responded, almost wryly, half-buried beneath static. "What does it look like out there?"

"Dead in the water. I'm seeing lights but no movement. Haven't scanned a single craft in and out in fifteen minutes."

"Locked down in here, as well."

"You want to give me the short version?" Joker asked.

"It's Cerberus."

"Shit." Joker swallowed, his throat gone suddenly sandy. "Shepard's sending a ground team in. Where are you?"

"She needs to hit C-Sec. Headquarters," Thane added, briskly laconic.

"That's buried deep."

"They're moving through the Citadel, ward by ward. To me, this reads as invasion. I've seen security responses, but they're getting overwhelmed. Whatever else Cerberus is doing, they're targeting communications."

"Leaving everyone down there trapped. Okay." Desperately, Joker tried to sort it through his head again, the shocking welter of the information. "Where are you?"

"I'm moving forward. Aiming for the Presidium."

Meaning, Joker realised, the assassin wasn't trusting the shadows or whatever else he could see or the garbled comms he'd managed to somehow patch their way. "Copy that. Take care and keep in touch if you can."

The channel dropped back to hissing silence.

"Well," Joker mumbled, and pulled at the peak of his cap. "Shit."

"This is not the kind of plan that can be undertaken either easily or simply," EDI remarked.

"Or cheaply. And that was one hell of an understatement, by the way." He leaned on the comm button again. "Commander?"

"What is it?"

"Now you're _really_ not going to like it."

* * *

><p>Some days, Shepard thought, she should just stop asking <em>whether<em> something had gotten itself colossally fucked up and start asking _what _had. She sat with her shoulders against the wall of the shuttle and her thoughts already roiling. "Clear?"

"Clear," Cortez answered.

"Okay." She squared her shoulders. "We have a completely unknown situation going on here. All I've got are Councilor Valern's assertion that Udina's got his fingers somewhere they don't belong and Krios' message concerning Cerberus. Lot of pieces still missing."

"So what's the Cerberus connection? A magical fucking coincidence, or did Udina jump up and down looking for outside help until the Illusive Man thought it sounded like a good idea?" Vega asked.

"Who reached out first, you mean? I don't know. I guess that kind of nifty detail is in the dark until we get down there," she retorted mildly. "We'll assume hostile terrain. I want this worked as an infiltration assignment. Quick and quiet until we know more. Our priority is getting to Valern."

"Any other thoughts, Commander?" EDI asked.

"Just a stack of theories, none of which make much sense. But if we're looking at a militarized take-over, we need to assume big numbers and a strategy that must've been going on for a while. You don't just roll up to the Citadel, park your pretty cruiser and take over the docking protocols."

"Reach, money and a lot of pull. Sounds like Cerberus," Garrus said. "And I'd bet on sleeper agents."

"I agree. The higher placed the better."

"C-Sec," he said sourly, and Shepard silently agreed.

"Multiple unknowns," Vega muttered. "Shit. I hate days like this."

"Don't worry, Vega. We'll find _something_ for you to shoot at, I promise."

"You're too kind to me, Commander."

The shuttle slewed sideways. Instinctively, Shepard stood, bracing one hand over the hatch. "Watch for civilians," she said. "The people here are going to be scared and uncertain. All they'll see when they look at us is going to be more guns, so keep a leash on your reactions."

"Seconds, Commander," Cortez said. "I'm reading lots of commotion on the ground. Likely to be a slog just getting you into C-Sec."

"Just get us as close as you can." She glanced across to Garrus and discovered him already standing, terse and poised. "Doing this the hard way, I guess."

His teeth flashed in a brief grin. "There's ever an easy way?"

"I'll let you know if I stumble upon it."

She unslung her rifle, easing herself away from the door when it whirred open. She registered the raucous clamour of gunfire first, and the wretched mess of scorched metal and heat-buckled walls beneath second.

Instants later she was moving, dropping out of the shuttle and onto the floor. As fast, she uncoiled upright. She rolled herself against the rise of an upturned bench and silently mapped it out, the cluster of Cerberus soldiers she'd already noticed up ahead, and the others still surging down the right-hand walkway.

Liara moved first, a livid web of biotic energy tangling the first group, stalling them. As brusquely, Shepard followed up, the hurled arc of a grenade knocking them back. On her other side, Garrus crouched, shoulders against the bench and his hands moving rapid and practiced against his rifle. They'd startled the bastards, Shepard realized, dropping into a clean-swept area and slowing them down.

Fifteen minutes cleared the walkway, and another handful took her across the last of the open space, the air in front of her rippling when Liara sent the last of them staggering.

Through the doors, Shepard found herself staring at smoke and stillness. "Fuck," she muttered. "They really tore through."

She picked her way through debris, bits and pieces of desks and consoles and wide gleaming shards of glass. The air was raw with the reek of blood and heated metal. "Survivors?"

"Not seeing any," Vega answered tersely.

"Right. Quickly and quietly. I want these rooms checked before we move on."

She shoved back a sudden surge of anger and made herself keep going, keep moving, checking the grey confines of the offices, all of them strewn with the dead.

"Shot in the back of the head," Garrus growled, from somewhere behind her. "And he's not the only one I've noticed."

She turned and followed his gaze to one of the crumpled figures on the floor, a young man – _he was a kid,_ she thought, _he was a fucking _kid_ – _sprawled on his chest and with the top half of his face missing. "You okay?"

"No," he said, his blue eyes fiercely bright. "Not really."

"Yeah." Briefly, she touched the back of his wrist and felt the corded tension in him. "I get it."

"Commander?"

"What have you got, EDI?" Shepard stepped around the toppled shape of a table and strode back out into the corridor.

"A locked door and possible survivors."

"On my way."

The corridor wound through the tangle of offices and storerooms, the walls pocked and pitted from gunfire. The innocuous, unspoiled details jarred the hardest, she thought, the perfectly aligned stacks of datapads that someone'd piled up on a desk, an empty mug next to a console, the half-open locker with the contents inside fastidiously arranged. Behind her, she was aware of Garrus' simmering silence, his footsteps measured and too clipped.

She discovered EDI and the others at the top of the stairwell, Liara crouching with her omni-tool screen flickering. "What have we got?"

"No Cerberus chatter and two doorways," Liara answered. "But looking at this, I'd say getting the second door open will put you straight in their line of fire, regardless of who they are."

Shepard shrugged. "That's what the shields are for."

Liara shot her a vaguely rueful glance. "Alright. I will work on the locks, and you can try not to get shot again, Commander."

"Hey. When did I last get shot?" She mustered up a grin before Liara knelt beside the glowing lock, her hands flitting deftly across the keypad.

The door slid open. Shepard slid through the gap, her rifle up. A quick glance showed her fifteen feet of white floor and the second door, glass panes above the lintel snaked with cracks. Before she finished her first step, someone barked out, "Identify yourself."

"Commander Shepard, Alliance Navy. Who am I talking to?"

"Shit. Door open. Now."

She waited, never once easing her rifle down. The second door whirred open and she discovered herself looking at Bailey, his face streaked with sweat and grime.

"Bailey," she said uselessly, half-smiling. "You alright?"

"Yeah, except for that part where I almost got my ass shot off."

Shepard bit back a laugh. "That'll get you every time."

"Funny, Shepard."

She motioned the others in behind her, turned, and smiled when she saw Krios, standing black-clad and silent. "Krios." She caught his hand, clasping it roughly. "Hoped we'd run into you. How'd you get through to Joker?"

"Perseverance that bordered upon obstinacy," the assassin replied wryly. "In a way, I was lucky. I would guess Cerberus had several points of entry into the Citadel, and I was near none of them."

He was thinner, she noticed, leaner in the shoulders, his posture a little too controlled. His hands were clasped over the edge of a desk, narrow fingers stiff with tension.

"Bailey," Shepard said briskly. "You got eyes on Cerberus?"

"Not with any decent regularity. I know they're in the docks, mowing through the refugees. I got reports of gunfire from the squad I sent in. Their comms went dead fifteen minutes ago."

"They killing everyone who looks sideways at them?"

"No. They're," Bailey said, and shrugged. "I don't know. Separating them. Figured they're after prisoners, but I'm damned if I know why."

Shepard slung her rifle back into its harness. "Okay. Talk me through it."

She listened, her thoughts churning, while he explained how fucking _fast_ it had happened, how he'd gone from coffee and early morning meetings to consoles blinking black and the wrenching realization that it'd started at the docks, and they'd missed it until they were smack in the middle of it. How he'd raised Alenko, eventually and desperately, and found him as unaware as the dozen or so C-Sec officers he'd finally gotten through to. How his console that morning had a high-level note concerning Councilor Valern.

"Word from Alenko since?"

"He's headed towards the Presidium. All I know."

"And the rest of the Council?"

"Far's I know, they're breathing."

"Anything on Udina?"

Bailey blinked. "No."

"Okay." She paused. "I need to get to Valern. No word from Cerberus on him?"

"Not that I've heard," EDI answered.

"Alright. Let's assume Valern made it in for this meeting and start a sweep for him right here."

Bailey nodded. "I hear you. We'll move through after you. Try to get comms up and working."

"Commander," Krios said, shifting. "Would you mind an extra hand?"

She grinned. "Not at all."

He dipped his head, smiling. "Then I would be pleased to join you."

"Okay." She clipped his shoulder lightly. "Get yourself ready." She reached up for her rifle and added, "Bailey, keep in contact where possible."

"Will do."

The door on the far side of the room gave way to more corridors, white-walled and empty, streaked with water where the emergency sprinklers had kicked in. Other corners were still smoking, pocked with bullet holes and empty. Up a flight of stairs, the training rooms were deserted. Further in, they discovered a server room swarming with Cerberus soldiers, the first of them sent spiraling back when Garrus fired. Methodically, Shepard gestured Krios to her other side, settling her rifle against the crook of her shoulder.

Afterwards, she prowled her way to the open door, her gaze picking out another rise of stairs, and the widening white arches of the plaza beyond. Stillness assailed her, and even after they'd quartered the floor and the alcoves and she'd ordered Vega and EDI up to eyeball the over-hanging balconies above, nothing stirred.

She'd lowered her rifle an inch when Garrus spun, barking out her name. The crackling hiss of a tactical cloaking device hit her first. She whirled and found herself staring at Councilor Valern, his eyes wide and uncertain, both hands splayed.

"Councilor," she said. "Good to see you."

"Commander," EDI said, cutting across her, the crisp tempo of her voice slightly harried. "Multiple inbound targets, closing fast."

"I hear you. Liara, keep the Councilor back and safe. Stick with him."

"Of course."

"Terrain's open," she said, already moving. "Bottleneck them in the doors and do not get yourselves cornered."

Beside her, Garrus muttered, "Least there's no room for mechs in here."

"You jinx this by saying that, you get to take it down on your own, Vakarian."

"Nice."

The first door opened, and Shepard threw herself away from the sweeping arc of a grenade. The thud of the impact staggered her another few paces before she straightened. Brusquely, she curled herself against the curve of an alcove, sighted, and fired. She counted seven Cerberus soldiers as they hurtled through the doors, white-armoured and moving rapidly. A roil of biotic energy washed past her, toppling two of them.

"Commander," Vega said, close to breathless. "They got some bastard up here. He's on his way to you, and fucking fast."

"Copy. We'll handle it."

"It's weird."

Shepard bit back the urge to smile. When Garrus nodded, hefting his rifle, she crossed behind him, pressing herself back into the second alcove. "How weird?"

"Bastard's got a sword."

Bullets sprayed against the wall inches from her shoulder. She jolted away, the motion pitching her further. Her answering volley scythed the feet out from under one of the soldiers. She kept moving, darting past him, until she was coiled in the small scoop of the next alcove.

"Shepard," Garrus snapped. "Left hand balcony."

She twisted, staring through the rippling haze of biotic energy above until she saw him, whoever the hell he was, dropping lithe and fast and unperturbed. He hit the floor lightly, one hand flashing to the sword strapped across his back. Briskly she noted glossy black armour and the Cerberus stamp, small and yellow and flaring in the middle of his chest. With maddening ease, he snaked his way across the plaza, his path carving towards Liara.

Shepard snarled. Another flurry of bullets kept her pinned in the alcove, glaring at the pitted holes that slashed across the wall above. "Liara?"

"I see him."

"I'm on my way," Shepard said.

"I'm closer," Krios responded.

She nodded and inched closer to the edge of the alcove. She flung herself around it and swore when another round whipped past her head. Her shields buzzed and she kept moving, pushing on faster until she was crouched behind an upturned bench. She heard the shriek of metal catching against something and turned in time to see Krios, limned in the wild flare of his biotics.

The pistol in his hand jumped as he fired, the round snapping wide and over the shoulder of the Cerberus soldier. The sword flickered, parting the air again as he twisted, Krios matching his pace.

Shepard unhooked a grenade, the shuddering impact clearing the second doorway. "Vega?"

"You got more coming," he answered. "On our way back down."

She was partway across the plaza when she saw the Cerberus soldier dart forward again. The slim point of the sword dropped and raised and dropped again until it was buried in Krios' chest. He staggered, one hand heaving a tangle of biotic energy at the soldier.

"Garrus," Shepard snarled. "Cover me."

"Already there."

Behind, she heard the whip-fast rhythm as Garrus fired. She was ten paces away when the soldier yanked the sword clear, dripping. Some part of her was aware of Liara, catching Krios by the shoulders, a bright swathe of energy shielding him.

She ploughed shoulder-first into the soldier, letting her weight take them both onto the floor. The sword point caught and dragged. He twisted, one knee lifting against her hip and shoving her away. He lunged for the pistol at his waist, snarling something when she locked a hand around his arm and yanked.

A flurry of movement flung tipped her over and onto her back. She registered the glint of the sword and rolled sideways. Uncoiling upright, she lifted her rifle. As fast, the soldier followed. One sweeping blow to her sternum had her swaying. The next punched the breath from her chest. He reached for the sword and she hurled herself at him again, ramming one elbow under his chin. When he staggered back, she toppled him again, a scything kick that buckled his ankles.

His hand thumped hard against the floor, and somehow he kept his grip on the sword hilt. She drove the flat of her arm against his wrist until his fingers juddered open. Viciously fast, he rolled out from under her, snatching up the sword and turning away.

Shepard fired raggedly, most of the round soaking into his shields. The next shot whipped past his head. The third clipped his shoulder and he stumbled slightly. The fourth bit into the doorway he flung himself through, tearing fragments from the wall.

"Shepard?"

Her mind flat with anger, she fired again. "What?"

"Shepard," Garrus said. "He's gone. We're clear. Room's clear."

"We're not fucking clear." The words came out savage and furious and for the briefest instant, she regretted them. She made herself look across to Liara, to where she was kneeling beside Krios.

"It's alright," the assassin said, his voice sounding heavy and wet. "I have time. Go."

"Look," Shepard said.

"Go," he said again. "You'll do less good hovering here, Commander."

He was right, and she _knew_ he was damn well right, but it hurt when she nodded and found her comm. "Bailey?"

"Here, Shepard."

"I need a medical team at my location, ASAP."

"On their way."

She drew in a long, steadying breath, tasting blood at one corner of her mouth. She looked across to where Councilor Valern still stood, hands clamped over the back of a bench. "Alright, Councilor. Anything you didn't say earlier, anything about Udina. Anything you couldn't say earlier. I need to hear it now, and fast."

* * *

><p>The door slid open. Kaidan stepped through first, motioning the Councilors after him. As he'd done God knew many how times already, he quartered the room, checked the far door, and gestured them forward.<p>

Councilor Tevos glided across first, her gaze flitting up and locking on him. "Any updates, Alenko?"

"No, Councilor."

Not, he thought, since he'd guided them out of the high-walled labyrinth of the Presidium offices with a stopgap plan aimed at getting them into a skycar or a transport and maybe making it as far as some defensible location, somewhere he could keep them breathing.

Not since he had tried to get through to Bailey and heard only the hiss of static.

Not since he had found Udina pacing in the confines of his offices, his face slick with sweat and questions about Cerberus and details and timing and had Kaidan heard anything, anything else at all?

Not since the long stretches of corridor he'd led them through had proved unnervingly empty.

His comm unit sputtered, and Bailey said, "Alenko?"

"Got the Councilors."

"Good. I can confirm Valern is alive."

Kaidan exhaled sharply. "Details?"

"We've combed through C-Sec HQ. It's a mess. Don't assume Cerberus have backed down."

"Copy."

"Shepard's here. On her way to you right now. Should be close."

"Shepard? What's she doing here?" Immediately he cursed the furious tone he'd let escape.

"Kicking Cerberus the hell out of C-Sec HQ, if you must know," Bailey retorted.

"How'd she," he said, and bit back the words. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. There's," Bailey said, his voice swallowed up by the swell of the static.

"Say again."

The same useless crackle of the static dropped into silence.

"Major?" Udina caught his elbow. "What was that about Shepard?"

"She's here and she's made contact with C-Sec," he answered.

"How?"

"That I don't know yet, sir. We need to move."

"Yes," Udina said. "Of course."

The narrow corridor wound its way to another archway, opening out to a high platform, railings lining both sides and a door at the far end. Briskly, Kaidan eyed the height – _stomach-churningly high, poised over the undulating green and blue of the open ward arms below – _and fiercely hoped he hadn't backed them into a corner.

The door swished open, and he was _almost_ surprised when he found himself staring at Shepard. Her armour had that scuffed, battered look that he knew came from dragging yourself through long hours of up-close skirmishes. He noticed Garrus next, the turian shadowing her, Vega and Liara trailing. The breath locked up in his throat when he saw – _can't be, shouldn't be_, he thought frantically_ – _the silvery shape of a mech, lithe and graceful and far too fucking like the thing they'd run into on Mars.

Kaidan battened down jangling nerves, kept his rifle steady and said, "Shepard. Bailey mentioned you were on your way."

"Kaidan. I need you move away from Councilor Udina."

"What?" He looked at her, trying to see through the fierce blank mask of her eyes.

"The station's overrun with Cerberus because he fucking let them in."

Beside him, Udina froze. Kaidan motioned him back, never once letting his gaze slip from her, from the coiled way she was standing, rifle raised. "And I'm meant to believe you and your weapons, right?"

"You're meant to listen to me because I'm right. Because Councilor Valern called us here. Udina's _handed_ us to Cerberus, all of us, all you."

"Drop your weapons," Kaidan said flatly.

"I don't think so." She was moving, inching her way closer, her steps poised.

"Back down and drop them," Kaidan said. "And explain why the hell I'm looking at a Cerberus mech that I thought got left behind on Mars."

"Shit." Shepard stopped. "This isn't what you're thinking. She's not…"

"Really?" His voice pitched higher in anger. "Because from where I'm standing, I remember seeing that thing up close while it tried to rip my head off."

"She's not the same," Shepard snapped. "And right now I don't have the time to take you through it."

"Last time, Shepard. Get rid of the weapons."

"I'll lower it but it stays in my hand. That's the best you're getting."

He waited until she had, the muzzle dipping down and her hands loosening a fraction. "Talk to me," he said.

"Just what I said before. Udina said yes to Cerberus. Said yes to handing the rest of the Council over. Which means he said yes to giving Cerberus the Citadel. He's neck-deep with them."

Beside him, Udina shifted, his hands tightening. "You have no proof," he said. "You never do. Words pulled out of the air to suit whatever it is you need to say."

Like Prothean beacons, and dreams he couldn't understand but he'd believed her, because he'd been there in the medbay when she'd jolted awake, waxen and desperately trying to put it into words, whatever it was. As jarringly, he remembered how unendingly strange it had seemed even after Feros, and the Cipher, when pieces of the buried truth had started so slowly fitting together.

"I have Councilor Valern's testimony and I'll make you all listen to it if I have to." Her voice rang hard and implacable. "I was at C-Sec HQ today. Cerberus didn't just clear a way through, they fucking massacred them. Mowed them down. Kids with the _front _of their heads blown out."

Silence stretched, icy and drowning and Kaidan knew he had to say _something_, anything.

"Alright," he said thickly. "Let me hear it."

He saw Shepard relax slightly – the small softening in her shoulders, in the angles of her face – before she nodded. She lifted one hand from her rifle. Beside him, he was aware of Udina moving again, his feet sliding.

He turned, aware abruptly of someone shouting something before Udina's hand dropped, scrabbling under the back of his tunic.

"Lose it," Kaidan growled. "_Now_, Councilor."

Udina jolted back, his eyes wide. His hand lifted, curled around the slim shape of a pistol. He spun, the pistol wavering as he raised it, sighting on the other Councilors. Kaidan gritted his teeth, hoped for a brief, desperate moment, and fired.

Udina staggered, one shoulder torn open. Another shot thumped into his back, crumpling him.

"Kaidan," Shepard said, lowering her rifle. "It's done. It's over."

"Yeah," he said, the word numb and useless.

He was aware of movement, Liara darting forward, kneeling beside Udina. The other two Councilors and their voices, hushed, their careful stillness. Liara moving again, taking herself towards Tevos, her head inclined as she started speaking about how they'd rushed to get here, how it was all still a mess.

He made himself look up and across the white floor. Shepard slung her rifle back into its harness and turned, folding herself against Garrus' shoulder. She said something, half-smiling, and the turian leaned closer.

He turned, fumbling for his comm until he heard only static.

"Hey," Shepard said. "Kaidan. You're okay?"

"Yeah." He met her level gaze. Before he could think otherwise, he asked, "You're staying?"

She grinned, lopsided and tired. "Hell of a lot of mop-up. Figured we might lend a hand."

"Yeah," he said, and wondered at the strange ache in his chest. "I thought so too."

* * *

><p>"You know," Shepard said, and carefully unsnapped the pieces of her rifle. "I can honestly say I didn't see that coming."<p>

On the other side of the workbench, still in his armour and still reeking of smoke and blood and metal, Garrus lifted his head. "Then I guess it's good Valern shouted out."

"Fuck knows what would've happened if he hadn't." She shoved away from the bench, her knuckles whitening. She could still feel it, the half-buried simmer of the anger.

"We're meant to be presenting a united front to the rest of the galaxy, and Udina goes and does this? Yeah, great, he was desperate. We're all fucking desperate right now. All of us. This could be the end of everything and he just – shit_._"

"Finished?" Garrus asked mildly.

"Only getting started."

"I can listen," he said.

She gulped out a laugh. "No, I think I just about summed up my opinion on the matter."

Shepard tipped her head back and forced her shoulders to slacken slightly. Hours ago they'd docked the _Normandy_ and she'd asked for clean-up volunteers from the crew and _still_ she couldn't shake it, the prickling apprehension that her ship wasn't quite safe. Even here, amid the enveloping quiet of their quarters, her thoughts were roiling.

"How was Krios?" Garrus asked, his voice softening.

"Stable," she answered. "And not in a good way. In a waiting for it to be over way."

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head. As numbly, she sat, gloved hands skating over her knees. "Krios' son asked me if it was better. Going out like that rather than let Kepral's Syndrome leech him dry."

"What did you say?"

"I bullshitted him and told him that his father's actions were courageous, and that's what mattered."

"That's not bullshit."

"No? Sure felt like it." She yanked the catches on her gloves open. "Should've told him to stay behind."

"Hey," Garrus said. "You do what you can with what you have at the time."

"Right."

"And besides, you know you couldn't've made him stay."

She dropped her gloves onto the workbench. "Doesn't make it easier."

"No. It doesn't."

She heard him moving, crossing the floor behind her and stopping. He found the buckles on her armour and paused long enough to slide the side of his face against hers. She felt the teasing play of his teeth against her jaw before he lifted her shoulder plates away. She hissed at the sudden, aching shift in pressure.

As tenderly, he eased her undershirt away. "Alright?"

"I've live," she muttered.

"You'd better."

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

She turned, standing in the same motion. Garrus caught her against his chest, his hands settling at the small of her back. "Are you okay?"

He hesitated. "It threw me," he admitted. "Not just what they did in C-Sec, but – hell, Shepard. You're right. I never saw it coming either. Not like that."

"Yeah."

Whatever else she wanted to say ran dry so she turned her attention to the clasps on his bracers. She fumbled the first one until he laughed and helped her. Somehow, between them, they worked the rest of their armour off and toppled each other onto the bed. She burrowed under the sheltering arch of his arm and sighed when he stroked his way down the stiff curve of her back.

He said nothing – _and she should've known he wouldn't, because he was Garrus, and he knew her so well _– and only gathered her closer.

"Reckon we could sleep thirty hours without being asked to do anything?" Shepard mumbled against the side of his mouth.

Garrus laughed. He nipped at the side of her neck, his tongue brushing her pulse. "I give us six at the most."

"You're no fun."

"Long day," he said blandly. "Brings out the realist in me."

"Sure it does."


	48. Repercussions

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything. _

_**Chapter Forty-Eight – Repercussions**_

The white-walled corridors were too silent, Shepard thought, locked in a kind of tremulous stillness. She'd already passed three C-Sec clean-up squads, meticulous and methodical and working with fiercely quiet determination. Even earlier, when she had made her way out of the _Normandy_ and through the docks, she had discovered the wards close to deserted, the air still heavy with smoke and dust.

She stepped into the Spectre offices, looking up in time to see Alenko where he sat at the far console. He turned, and she noticed that he looked as raw and exhausted as she probably still did, his eyes shadowed.

"Hey," he said. "Thanks for coming."

"I happened to be in the area," she answered, and saw him smile slightly. "How's it going from this side of things?"

"I've got lists upon lists," Alenko said wryly. He spun the chair. "I'm working with Bailey, mainly. Getting C-Sec back on its feet while somehow at the same time going over civilian issues."

"That part where you're meant to do everything faster than humanly possible."

"Yeah. What about you?"

"Let's just say the war room debrief was a bitch to get through."

"I can imagine."

His voice was as bland and inflexionless as hers and she wondered how long they'd have to keep it up, this flat fencing of words until they could start digging into the grueling truth of it.

How he'd had his weapon raised and how she'd never once thought she'd drop hers and how for the smallest instant she'd considered it, clipping him so he'd stumble. How, wrenchingly, he'd stopped being _Kaidan_ and become the blunt-edged shape trapped in her sights.

She leaned against the table and said, "Okay. You start."

"Tell me about the mech."

Shepard blinked. "The frame of it is the mech – whatever it was – that we ran into on Mars. EDI rewrote it, essentially."

"EDI," he repeated.

"You met EDI on the _Normandy_, right?"

"Yeah, briefly," he said, and scrubbed at the back of his neck. "It was just – hell, it was just a voice."

"She," Shepard said crisply.

"I just – I guess I don't get it."

"Okay. That doesn't mean it's not true. The mech isn't what it was on Mars. _She's_ EDI. She's also still in the _Normandy_, before you ask."

His eyebrows knotted. "And she's not a VI, is she?"

Shepard grinned. "No. She isn't. Ask Joker to tell you about that sometime."

"I can't believe I didn't notice _something_," he said, still frowning. "I can't – it seems so obvious now. Just the way Joker talked to her. The way she answered."

"Right, because you're expected to have perfect perception and awareness while a whole planet is going up in flames around you," Shepard said mildly. "And anyway, EDI and Joker kept the whole thing rather quiet on Earth."

"For the whole retrofit?" he demanded.

"Yeah," she said, and bit back the urge to grin at him again.

"I don't know whether to be scandalized or impressed."

"I went with impressed."

A smile ghosted across his mouth, vanishing as quickly. "You next."

"Did you know Udina was armed?"

His head shot up. "_No_. No, I – shit, Shepard. What kind of question is that?"

She shrugged. "Maybe pat the Council down time next you rescue them."

Alenko snorted. "Very funny. I'll take it under advisement."

She lifted herself onto the table, planting her elbows on her knees. "What else?"

"What do you mean?"

"Kaidan, I can see how uncomfortable you are from here. And yeah, I get it. You don't walk into a day expecting to face down a friend over your rifle."

Something in his face eased. "No," he said. "I guess you don't. Hey, look. I wanted to – well, ask you something. Or say something, I guess."

"Shoot."

"And I'm already convinced it's going to come out wrong."

"Then no, I'm never going to answer that question about whether I think it's you or Liara who's better with the sparkly blue biotics."

He laughed, the sound of it almost breathless, as if he hadn't expected to. "They're not sparkly. And besides, it's always Liara. Just don't tell her that."

"Sometimes they're sparkly," she said, gentler. "Go on."

"You and Garrus," he said, and stopped.

"Yes."

He nodded. "Yeah, I thought – actually, I don't know what I thought. I just noticed…"

"Noticed?"

"I don't know. I guess how close you – yeah." He exhaled sharply. "Shit. Sorry. It's none of my - I shouldn't've said anything."

"It's okay," she said.

He smiled, but it was edged. "Yeah."

"Tell me about Horizon," she said, the words rolling off her tongue before she could catch herself. "And don't bullshit me about orders this time."

He paused, pushing one hand through his hair, thick and black. "Okay. Hear me out?"

"Long as you need."

His gaze flicked away from her, fixing over her shoulder. "When the intel first came through, it wasn't Collectors we assumed, it was Cerberus. And sure, while they were interested and tracking Collector movements, we didn't have the intel quite the right way around."

"Why'd the Alliance send you?"

His eyes narrowed slightly. "That's the worst part. They sent me because I'd been on the _Normandy_ and because, well. There were rumours. Of you."

"Of me up and walking around? Or me and Cerberus?"

"Both," he said flatly. "So we cooked up an excuse to send me out to Horizon to go help the colonists with their defences and wait."

"_You're looking at a ghost_. Wasn't that what you said?"

Alenko winced. "Yeah. Yeah, I did. Thanks for reminding me."

She smiled crookedly. "Sorry."

"You aren't. But hell, Shepard. That's what it felt like. I wasn't – I can't even tell you now _what_ I was expecting to see."

"And?"

"And then I was looking at you, and you didn't look like yourself."

Horizon had been bright, she remembered, blue sky lidding the low rise of the hills. The colony that had been all makeshift cabins and the patchwork kind of maze that jumbled together the landing pad and the defence towers and the rec rooms and that high-walled plaza they'd realized had been attached to the school.

Furiously she snapped, "And that's a surprise, is it, given that I spent months upon months strapped to a fucking operating table while they put the torn apart pieces of me back together?"

His eyes flashed angrily. "How could I have known that, at that point? How could I have known?"

"I figured you might still trust me. Might listen to me."

"I wanted to trust you."

"Why didn't you?"

"How could I?" he said, his voice jarring. "You'd – you were standing there in front of a Cerberus ship. Your squad was Cerberus."

"Not all of them."

"Right."

She reined in the flare of her temper. Carefully, she said, "I had no idea you'd be there. We were after the Collectors. I'd hoped we'd beat them back from taking most of the colonists and well, you know how well that turned out."

"That wasn't your fault."

"No. Didn't make it easy to acknowledge, though." She stared down at her boots, braced flat on the floor. "You know what I did afterwards?"

Silently, he shook his head.

"I took myself into the gym and I beat the living crap out of a punching bag," she said lightly.

"Did it survive?"

"Barely. It was stupid, I guess. I was just so fucking angry. Not just at you. At what had happened on Horizon. The Collectors. Those things – seekers – they used. So much we didn't know."

Almost wryly, he said, "You know, I got tangled up in those."

"You're kidding."

"What, you thought I was hiding somewhere?" His voice was easier, now, the corners of his mouth almost shifting into a smile. "I didn't know what the hell they were. They moved fast and by the time I'd worked out what they could do, there's me, wrapped up in them and not quite able to move."

Shepard snorted. "You're going to regret telling me that, you know."

"Great."

"No, really. I'm sitting here trying to be sympathetic, but that's actually kind of funny. You go up against geth and Reapers and come out alive, and then get yourself tripped up by Collector tech."

He was smiling, and painfully she understood, the way words were easier sometimes when they were lighter, when you could pretend that they buried the distance well enough that it didn't matter. When you tried desperately and hurriedly to patch over the silences and the past and hoped it might hold together.

"Still," she said. "When I was on Freedom's Progress, I fell off a ledge that happened to be over a very big drop. I went ass first onto the ground and nearly hit a mech on the way down. Don't know whether it or me was more surprised."

"What were you doing there?"

"It was a colony that had been swept clean. There was the possibility of a lead on what turned out to be the Collectors, so we checked it out. We also ran into Tali while we were there."

"I'm sorry."

She smiled. "We're good then?"

"Yeah," Alenko said, his expression softening. "We're good."

"What's the rest of your day look like?"

"Bailey tells me his men picked up a handful of Cerberus soldiers. They're trying to get them to talk, and well. They're not talking."

"How do they look?"

"Just like they did on Mars. Human, mostly."

"Yeah, that mostly part really gets under my skin."

"Not just yours." He scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck and said, "Did you want some coffee?"

"Can't be worse than the _Normandy_'s, can it?"

"Shepard, _nothing_ is worse than the _Normandy_'s."

She grinned. "Works for me."

She waited while he meandered through and into one of the other rooms. After he passed her a mug, brimming and heavy, she breathed in the rich, warm scent of it. "You know, I think you know your way around here better than I do."

"Little else to do when the doctor says don't move much or you'll be ordered back to bed where you don't get to move at all."

"Hah. Fair point." She leaned over the welcome heat of the coffee. "You pulled anything up yet on Udina?"

"Nothing useful. Compiling his movements, tracking his contacts. Most of it's what you'd expect – politics, diplomacy, meetings, lots of red tape."

"And no handy message titled _Dear Cerberus people, come help me_."

Alenko grinned. "No. Sadly not."

"There'll be something there."

"Yeah. He was – I know I'm second-guessing, but he was wound tight."

"Don't do that," Shepard said mildly. "You'll be finding evidence of his guilt in every single thing he ever said to you at that rate."

"True."

"What is it?"

His head jerked up. "What do you mean?"

"You're trying to decide whether to say something," she said wryly. "Don't argue. I can read you like a book sometimes, you know that."

"Nice." He paused a moment longer. "Admiral Hackett dropped me a message."

"About Udina?"

"Yeah, to begin with. Mainly he wanted clarifications on my early reports. He also said he'd have a position open for me if I wanted to work with the Crucible team."

Shepard gulped down a mouthful of coffee too fast, scalding one side of her tongue. "Is there still time for me to recommend to Hackett that we call it _anything_ else? It's so ominous it's absurd."

Alenko laughed. "I'm not saying I disagree."

"So what's the catch?"

"If there's a way – shit. I guess I'm asking if you wouldn't mind another hand on the _Normandy_."

His words hung between them, abruptly fragile. "Kaidan," she said.

"Yeah, I know. I just threw that at you. After everything here, I've been thinking it over and, well. Whatever happens, I can be a Spectre and a soldier somewhere other than here."

Unwaveringly, she met his gaze. "I can't make this decision for you. I can't tell you what I would want. You need to decide where you want to be."

"Shepard," he said.

"Just listen, will you? You want to come back to the _Normandy_, I'm not going to say no. You'll be welcome, and you'll pull your weight, and I'd be damn happy to have you around. But you want to take Hackett's offer, and I'll as happily see you off and we can share drinks when all this shit is wrapped up."

"Yeah." His eyes flickered uncertainly.

"Don't decide this too fast. Think it through, that's all I'm asking."

* * *

><p>Garrus glared down at the datapad and tried to ignore the aching strain locked across the back of his head. Names, he thought, and too many of them and even now there'd be some poor stammering C-Sec officer out tracking down girlfriends and husbands and families and trying to put it into words, the shattering truth of it.<p>

He leaned back in the chair, too aware that he was sitting in the half-cleared wreckage of an office that looked too sharply like it could've been his own, years ago.

The door opened and Bailey said, "Vakarian? You're still here?"

"Yeah. Just going over it all. Anything new?"

Bailey shook his head. "Just hitting walls wherever we dig. Cerberus bastard you ran into, he was damn smart. Released a VI into our systems, wiped him clear out of our security footage. Made of smoke and mirrors, that one."

"The way he fought? Sword and focusing so hard on Shepard and sticking around to get the shit kicked out of him?" Garrus shook his head. "You don't start out like that. He's got a history somewhere."

"I agree. You know he'll be back, right?"

"Counting on it," Garrus said fiercely.

Bailey smiled, the movement slight and tired. "You need anything?"

"Actually, I was going to ask you that."

"Shepard already loaned me your comm specialist to go over the data we're bringing in." Bailey's smile widened. "I think of anything, I'll let you know."

"Lot of men lost," Garrus said, not censuring, the words rough.

"Too many. And of course, the ones I've got left, running themselves into the ground. Think I have half a chance in hell of telling them to go back home and just sleep?"

Garrus barked out a laugh. "Absolutely not a chance and you know it."

"You're probably right. Take care, Vakarian."

"I'll try."

The afternoon wore on, silent and still and Garrus found himself staring at the gouged-out bullet holes that arced above the door. More crossed beneath the other window, the wall still reeking of whatever had been used to scrub it clean. When the door slid open again, he had his gaze pinned back on the last datapad, on the curt words of some no-name C-Sec officer who'd had the sour luck to get himself shot in the thigh and the good fortune to pull through afterwards.

"Still working?" Shepard asked.

His head came up in time to see her lean against the door-frame. "You know that bit where you've been staring at it for so long it all blurs?"

She smiled. She was as wrung through as he was, he saw, her eyes bruised with tired shadows. "That's the part where you admit defeat and step away from the paperwork."

"Admit defeat? Me? Never."

She found the other chair, swiveled it and sat beside him.

"How was Kaidan?" he asked.

"About as confused as we are," she said, and shrugged. "Running it all through his head."

"Would you have taken the shot?"

One side of her mouth shifted. "No. I might've shot past him. Or clipped him." She sighed. "I thought about it. For an instant I thought about it."

"I get it."

"Hell of a thing to realize about yourself."

He turned so he could look into her face. He brushed his forehead against hers and let himself become aware of the scent of her, all clean fatigues and soap and the warmth of her beneath it all.

She was motionless, her lips grazing the edges of his mouth. "Isn't this the part where you're supposed to tell me it was a clusterfuck of a day and that we all make mistakes?"

Very gently, he said, "Would it help?"

"Probably not."

He cupped a hand around the back of her neck and felt the rigid tension in her. He rolled his thumb up under the messy whorls of her hair. "You wouldn't have."

"Really."

"Really," he said, and held her there against him. "I know you."

Her eyes closed. She shuddered, and he felt the breath emptying from her. "Yes."

"And besides, I know what you look like when you aim and mean it. I can almost guarantee that on its own is scary."

Her eyes snapped open, glittering wickedly. "Great. So you spend firefights checking out the expressions I have?"

"Not just your expressions, I promise."

She spluttered into a laugh. "You're a charmer, Vakarian."

"Always."

She shifted, pressing her mouth to the corner of his. She lifted her legs across his knees and curled herself into his shoulder. Eventually she said, "Got a message from Anderson."

"What did he say?"

"About Udina? Oh, shit, mainly."

Garrus laughed. "Sums it up."

"Turns out our new friend has a name and the start of a trail."

"Good," he said fiercely. "Makes him easier to track down."

"Anderson's run into him before. And yes, before he started showing up with Cerberus armour on. Bastard's name is Kai Leng, and he's former N7. Dishonourable discharge."

"Lovely."

Shepard chuckled, the sound mostly a sigh. "You feel good."

"Course I do."

"Confidence. You know I like that."

"That and a whole lot of other interesting things I'm good at."

"That was a wretched line," she protested.

"I'll work on it next time."

"Sure you will."

She eased herself closer to him, and briefly he wondered how she could possibly be comfortable, perched half in the chair with her legs slung across him and her boots not quite touching the floor.

"Kaidan asked about sticking around."

"On the _Normandy_? He's serious?"

"I think so. I don't know how he'll figure it in the end, but Udina really threw him."

"Threw us all."

"Yeah. I said I'd give him time and then go with his decision either way, but I'm sure as hell not making it for him."

"I understand," he said quietly.

She lifted his arm and arranged it around her shoulder so that she was burrowed against him properly. He swallowed back a soft laugh and held on until she had relaxed against him – _until they'd both relaxed, leaning into each other_ – the crown of her head under his jaw and his mouth full of the scent of her. She reached for him, her hand sliding up under the back of his fringe until he shivered.

The door whirred open. Not hurrying, Shepard extricated herself from him, her boots hitting the floor as she sat up. Garrus looked across at Traynor, pausing in the doorway and abruptly staring at her own feet.

"Commander," Traynor said. "Sorry to interrupt."

"Not a problem, Traynor. What is it?"

"The data we've gathered so far, Commander. It's civilian casualty lists, along with a handful of intel on Cerberus movements."

"I understand."

"And an urgent message from the hospital. Kolyat Krios is asking for you."

Garrus saw the small, locked instant of resigned understanding in Shepard's face before she nodded.

"Of course. I'll be right there."

* * *

><p>Even just past midday, the <em>Normandy'<em>s CIC was quiet. Sitting with the walkway doors open, Joker silently concluded that part of him liked it like this, the wrapped stillness of it all, even if it meant he had to look through the cockpit screens and see the enveloping shroud of the Citadel docks.

"You know," Garrus said, from somewhere behind him. "You could do what everyone else is doing and go hole up somewhere with a slightly different kind of recycled air for a few hours."

Joker coughed and spun his chair around. "I ever tell you that you move creepily quietly sometimes given how big you are?"

"Probably."

He looked up and into the sharp angles of the turian's face, the blue eyes above narrow and fierce. "You okay?"

"I'll get there."

"Yeah. EDI said it was a shitstorm on the Presidium. Well, she used prettier words, but you know what I mean."

"She was right." Garrus leaned against the console. "It was a mess all over. Still is."

"Yeah," Joker said. "And the stupid part is I just want to know why Udina possibly thought that Cerberus was the right choice. Or any choice. And then I remember _I_ made that choice myself, not all that long ago."

"You weren't on the Council," Garrus remarked drily. "That I recall, in any case."

"Very funny."

"How'd it happen?"

"They came to me," Joker admitted. He shrugged. "I wasn't feeling – I mean, after the _Normandy_, I wasn't – shit."

"Hey," Garrus said lightly. "I thought it was a good idea to go to Omega, and we all know how that turned out."

Joker laughed, surprising himself. "I guess it's easy to say that they tracked me down. They asked me and they damn well waited for me to be sure. And shit, Garrus, they were clever."

"How do you mean?"

"They gave me just enough info to get me interested. The ship, the project, but not too much detail, not yet. I just wanted," he said, the words running dry. "Shit. I thought I was through this."

"You're allowed not to be. Especially when Cerberus goes and does something like this."

"And aren't you all astute," Joker said, his voice empty of rancor.

"Only on my good days." Garrus' expression shifted, softening slightly, the lines there seeming to ease. "Would you have gone to them?"

"If they hadn't tracked me down? I don't know," he said honestly. "Couldn't say. I want to say I wouldn't've, absolutely not, no way in hell, take me back to the Alliance, and so on. We knew the kind of things they were doing."

"Yeah."

"But then you figure, well, they're not the same people, not exactly, different group, and maybe _this_ thing they're doing is something you can handle." Joker sighed. "I'm not making any sense."

"No, you are. I get it."

"Then you're on a roll. I'm still just confused." He stared at the blank blur of the console screen. "I just – the things they knew. They knew I was the one flying the damn ship when it came apart. They knew she came back for me, or they convinced me I thought they knew that."

"That's clever." Garrus tilted his head to one side. "Vicious as hell but damn smart."

"You know the worst part, though?"

"What?"

"One meeting, the bastards tricked me by working out my favourite drink and bribing me with it. With lots of it."

Garrus laughed, the sound of it frayed and relieved at the same time. "Alright. I'll give you that one. Didn't think you were going to say that."

Despite himself, Joker grinned. "About time for me to get one over on you. How's the clean-up on the wards looking?"

Garrus hesitated, his eyes narrowing.

"That bad," Joker muttered.

"Let's just say it'll take a while. Bailey's doing what he can, patching C-Sec back together. Problem is, he'll have a long line of new recruits wanting to join up for all the wrong reasons."

"But if they learn which way round to hold a gun fast enough, does it really matter?" Joker said sourly.

"And here I thought I was meant to be the cynical one."

"Sorry. Been that kind of day."

The comm station crackled, and Shepard, "Joker?"

"I hear you, Commander," he replied.

"I'm close. How's everything?"

"Most of the crew are still out on the wards. Even got Liara to agree to some downtime."

"Garrus with you?"

"Right here, taking up too much space."

"Be right there," she said, her voice clipped and terse.

Five minutes later, she was inside and making her way up the walkway, her face pale and drawn under the harsh spill of the lights. She paused, her hands tightening and loosening against the back of the co-pilot's chair.

"What's happened?" Joker asked, the words already out of his mouth before he realized he knew. She had that _heaviness_ in her eyes, that dammed-back awareness that hadn't quite yet crept its way to grief, not yet, not while the weight of it was still too new.

"Thane's dead," Shepard said. She unlatched her hands from the back of the chair and paced, her heels cracking hard against the floor. "He was – I was there, with his son. Kolyat was with him."

"I'm sorry," Garrus said, his voice rough.

"Yeah," she said. "Me, too."

* * *

><p>The vidscreen was bright, livid with the white lights of the Presidium platform it was framing. She reached forward, her fingers finding the keypad. When the screen froze, she scanned the screen again, her gaze roving past the trimly-clad C-Sec officers until she was looking at Shepard. Fatigues crisply pressed and hands clasped behind her back and dark eyes looking bruised with shadows. On her left side was a turian – Garrus Vakarian, she knew, tall and all angles and she knew Shepard had dug him up on Omega, of all places – and on the other side another C-Sec officer.<p>

Behind her, the door opened. "What do you think?"

She did not drag her eyes from the screen. "She's tired. Look at her. She's taken a hell of a beating and no one's letting her sit down and work through it."

The door closed, and the woman crossed the floor. The woman had been Rasa, briefly, and other names, all of them beautiful and meaningless in equal measure. And Hope, a few times, the soft shape of the name absurd.

"What do I call you today?" she asked.

The woman laughed. "Does it matter?"

"I guess not."

"What else do you think?"

She scanned the screen again. "I think what happened at the Citadel has them all running scared. You crack apart the Council, and nothing's safe."

The words spilled off her tongue easily now, the Council and the Citadel and the tangled paths between them. The long months while she'd fought with what she knew, what she couldn't know, what she _thought_ she might remember until she'd been told that she'd remembered wrong, or perhaps not remembered at all. Whispers of memories – or thoughts, or imaginings, she was never sure which – plucking at the edges of her mind until she'd be pacing, or else in the firing range, emptying a rifle into the blank-faced targets until her hands ached.

"Here," the woman said, and dropped a datapad in front of her.

"This is new?"

"You'll recall Kaidan Alenko."

It wasn't a question, now, not like those dragging, slow early days. "Yes. Promoted to Major, more recently took up a Spectre position. Dangerously close to Councilor Udina, considering the Cerberus move on the Citadel."

"Except he's re-attaching himself to Shepard's crew."

She scooped up the datapad. "Do we know the details?"

"Some. Only that he'll be leaving with the _Normandy_."

"His choice? An order? Someone else's decision?"

The woman nodded, one corner of her mouth moving approvingly. "We don't know yet. We will."

It was often like this, the woman deftly stretching the silence until she had to grapple with it and pry it apart.

Sometimes, she did. Sometimes she saw the patterns between the intel and information and the small crawling whispers in the back of her head. Sometimes she _understood_. Other times she floated, unmoored, staring at shapes she could not name and did not comprehend until the woman explained, her voice clipped and terse.

She remembered how it had felt, that day, months ago and in this same room. When the woman had suggested a plan - no, not a plan, not a strategy, a _change_. When she had said yes so immediately and so fiercely it had almost startled her.

"_How?"_

_She listened, and slowly it seeped in that it would take weeks – more than weeks – and all the while, the Reapers would be chewing up the galaxy and she would have to learn, and fast. _

"_Reservations?"_

"_Some," she admitted. "If what you're saying is true, there's no way in hell her crew won't see through it straight away."_

_ "Even if they do, it won't matter. They're replaceable. They are not important. You are."_

_ "Flattery doesn't work on me. Thought we'd established that."_

_ The woman smiled. "Fair enough. Then let's just say we won't need her crew."_

"Distance," she said thoughtfully. "After what happened at the Citadel, up close and personal, you want distance."

"Yes. I agree. What else?"

She stared down at the datapad, the words there seeming to hang, frozen. "I'd want to know who chose the distance."

"Good."

"What is it?"

The woman smiled. "The _Normandy'_s left the Citadel. They're headed for the Perseus Veil."

"And when," she said.

"They'll be back. She will be. She has to."

Brusque as always, the woman turned, her heels clicking against the floor. The snap of the door closing followed, and then the inrush of the silence again.

She turned back to the vidscreen, as she knew she would – as she always did, inexorably – and stared at it. She searched Shepard's face again. She had done that – studying, parsing, imagining the layers there – so many times. Sometimes she traced the matching angles on her own face.

Shepard, she thought, and wondered.

It was a name, only a name, she supposed, two blunt syllables that she needed to make her own, that she needed to step into.


	49. Alliances

_Bioware owns nearly everything. As always, a big thank-you to everyone who's following this story, and reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Forty-Nine – Alliances**_

In the last indolent hour before the day cycle, Shepard lay sprawled across the rough warmth of Garrus' chest, her legs open over his waist. She was aware of the soft, barely-there motion of his hands, grazing down the curve of her back.

"I'm never moving again," she mumbled against his shoulder.

"This is the part where I get no say in the matter at all, right?"

"It's your fault, anyway."

"My fault? I happen to recall just lying here and taking orders."

She laughed until it turned into a yawn, muffled against him. "Suggestions. And your definition of _just lying here_ is all skewed."

"I don't remember hearing any complaints at the time," he said teasingly.

"Fair point." For long moments she stayed there, feeling the unhurried rhythm of him breathing under her, the welcome angles of his body reassuring. "You go over the data Hackett sent through?"

"Yeah." He feathered his hand over the back of her head again, slowly, combing through the rumpled mess he'd made of her hair. "I know it's too early to say, but it doesn't feel good."

"You read my mind." She leaned down, pausing long enough to kiss the underside of his jaw.

"I get pulling the quarians into talks," Garrus said thoughtfully. "They've got a hell of a lot of ships. Lot of soldiers."

"But why now, and why by way of a very vague _come talk to us_ message which got its way through to Hackett." She sighed. "Guess we'll know more when we're closer. I just hope – I don't know."

"You're worried about Tali?"

"You're doing it again," she said archly. "And yeah, I am. Sensible part of me knows she's fine, or something close to fine. But then I wonder what the hell they're doing over there and whether she's right in the middle of it."

"And even if she is, you know she's tough."

"Yeah, I know. Sometimes I guess I can't shake how young she was when we ran into her."

"Which was years ago," he said mildly.

"And there you go, being all rational." She leaned up, bracing herself so she could look down at him properly.

"I have my moments."

She traced the blue lines of his markings softly, taking her time, the soft pad of her thumb eventually brushing his scars.

"What is it?" Garrus asked mildly.

"You."

She lingered for another slow minute before she extricated herself, rolling off him. He moved too fast under her, and she ended up tangling her ankle against one of his spurs. Laughing, she dragged herself clear and darted into the shower inches ahead of him. There, he pinned her against the wall until they were both soaked, her eyes half-closed and her hands sliding down to his hips. As teasingly, he turned her, pulling her back against his chest, his hands roaming.

Later she toweled her hair dry and fished clean fatigues out of the locker. Mechanically she yanked them on, her fingers blindly finding buttons and buckles. She glanced up in time to see Garrus finishing up with the catches on his boots. Not quite meaning to, she watched the deft motions of his hands and wondered at the strange ease of it, of both of them like this, still wrapped in the languid quiet of each other.

"Catch me in thirty minutes? After you've beaten the gun battery into submission."

Garrus laughed. "And how do you know that's where I'll be?"

"Patterns of behavior. Also I'm the one who gets last look at the duty roster, remember?" She leaned up and kissed the side of his face. "Have fun."

A few meandering minutes took her down to the CIC and through the workstations there, the crew nodding to her, or else calling her over to talk through whatever it was they'd pulled up on their consoles this morning. Sometimes – _mostly, often,_ she thought,_ because they all needed to think it through, the shattering knowledge of it_ – they asked her about the Citadel, about Cerberus.

She discovered the mess hall as muted, Joker sitting opposite Cortez and Vega.

"Hey, Commander," Joker mumbled. "Caught up with Kaidan yet?"

"Not since I gave him the tour yesterday."

"Well, here's hoping he's remembered that good old-fashioned rule about serving on the _Normandy_. You know, the one that explicitly states that you don't try to shoot the commander."

Shepard spluttered into an unexpected laugh. "I'll be sure to remind him, should the need arise." She pulled a chair out and sat, flattening her hands on the table. "Tough day for all of us, that one."

"Yeah, not really something I'd like to sit through again," Cortez said musingly. "Felt like everything changed. Well, changed again. You know what I mean."

She smiled. "Yeah. I do."

* * *

><p>Shepard lifted the last datapad, sliding it across the table. "And that one's everything on Cerberus. Every collected report, rumour, mistake and possibly irrational thought I've ever had about them."<p>

Alenko smiled, the motion barely there. He scooped up the datapad, added it to the pile and answered, "I've been here less than twenty-four hours and you're drowning me in paperwork."

"You asked."

"Yeah, I know."

"If there's anything you think I've missed, anything else you think you should be seeing, anything else you think I've forgotten to forward, let me know."

He shook his head. "Shepard, you don't need to – hell, let me get through half of this first."

Crisply, she said, "I need you up to speed on what we've seen."

"Yeah. Thanks, Shepard."

His gaze darted, dark and abruptly uncertain, and she understood. Weeks ago he'd hustled himself on board with the rest of them, ash and blood and grime still clinging to them all, and just as jarringly rapidly they'd swung in over Mars. As brutally fast he'd been laid out flat, and she remembered it, the awful stillness in the half-empty medbay, the rasping way he'd tried to breathe through it.

And now he'd be walking the crew deck and through the armoury, she guessed, trying to match it with how the ship had once looked, years ago.

How the ship had felt.

Gentler, she said, "It'll work out, if you want it to."

"Really," he muttered.

"Look. When they first showed me the _Normandy_, back after I woke up, I swear to God it felt _wrong_. The angles were wrong, the rooms were too big, and I felt like I was going to get lost in my own fucking quarters." She shrugged, leaning against the table. "And the worst part was Joker was just so damn _happy_. He wanted to show me how bright and new it all looked, and I wanted to crawl into my quarters and never leave."

"What did you do?"

"I employed the fine and still occasionally useful art of compromise," she said archly. "Joker took me through the ship, and then I told him to go the hell away and leave me alone."

Alenko laughed. "Sure you did."

"With nicer words, but, yes."

"It's," he said, and hesitated.

"Go on. I'll only pry it out of you anyway."

He smiled, slow and soft. "Right. I know it's the _Normandy_. Back in the right colours, crewed by the right people." He paused, dark eyebrows knotting. "You know what I mean. But then I remember that I don't even know half their names yet."

"They call that the new-kid-at-basic feeling."

"Yeah, that's what it feels like. And I'm far too old to be feeling like that." He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "I'll get there."

The comm crackled, and Joker said, "Hey, Commander?"

"Why yes, I was just talking about you," she responded mildly.

"Flatteringly and admiringly, I hope. We've just picked up an SOS, coming out of Gellix."

Shepard frowned. "What's there?"

"Right now? Lots of ice, mountains, snow, and a bunch of people who claim they're Cerberus defectors and under attack from their former employers. Currently unable to evacuate."

"And this drops in on us just days after the Citadel gets royally fucked over. That's one hell of a coincidence."

"Yeah, that's what me and EDI figured as well."

"But?"

"But, if it's a trap, then they've gone to a lot of trouble to make it sound real."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Shepard muttered. "Okay. Thanks, Joker."

Silence rolled in, stretching and terse. Alenko was _waiting_ for her, she realized, waiting in that stilted, uncertain way she could've sworn she hadn't seen in him since they'd tried to claw themselves out of the greyness Virmire had left in them.

"So," she said, her voice deliberately pitched light. "Back to work?"

Alenko smiled, his shoulders straightening under the immaculate fall of his fatigues. "Sounds good, Commander."

Two hours later, she was sitting in the shuttle, her thoughts half on the absent blur of conversation around her and half on the fragments of information EDI had raked in. A complex that ran deep under the snow-cloaked mountains, dug in amid the high peaks and a bitch to get to. The climate report – whirling snow and the building threat of a blizzard – bothered her less than the patchy intel concerning just who was attacking who on the ground. Broken-up comm chatter from the base mentioned inbound Cerberus shuttles still dropping in fast, and they'd heard more than one garbled argument about defenses barely holding up.

Across from her, Vega said mildly, "Yeah, but on the ground and out in the open's just different."

"True," Alenko responded. "I get that. Interior terrain's got its own challenges, though."

"Getting backed into a corner. Yeah. Shit, I hate that."

"Getting close, Commander," Cortez said tersely.

Shepard stood, automatically reaching for her rifle. "Looks good or looks bad?"

Sitting beside her, Garrus laughed. "Why do we even bother asking?"

"I'm an eternal optimist."

"Looks cluttered," Cortez answered.

"That's diplomatic." Shepard grinned. The shuttle hatch swung up, brittle air gushing in. She looked down at the cold rolling whiteness beneath, noting the grey towers of the base, dusted with snow. "Alright. Let's clear a way through and find out just who needs help down here."

* * *

><p>The last hours of the day saw Kaidan stepping into the armoury, aware of the muscle-deep ache from the hours he'd spent hurtling around the white-walled base on Gellix. Biting cold had given way to the flat, sterile corridors inside, and more that once he'd found himself flagging. <em>No<em>, he thought, running it through his head again. Not flagging, not really, _over-thinking, assuming he'd know where the situation was going and reacting too fast when it flipped on them. _

As it had when Cerberus had matched them beat-for-beat around the AA guns and stupidly worse, when he'd found himself losing his footing on the icy mess of the slush. A surge of his biotics and an ungainly lurch had wrestled him halfway to poised again, he remembered.

Slowly, he rolled his shoulders looser under his fatigues. The rational half of his mind _knew_ it took time, time to get used to the unfamiliar roil of active duty, time to get used to how the others worked, to how they'd learned to work around each other.

"Hey," Garrus said, startling him out of his thoughts. "Alenko."

He dragged his head up in time to see the turian standing beside one of the weapon racks, head tilted to one side.

"Hey," Kaidan echoed. "Sorry. Lost in thought. Or just getting lost. I keep forgetting the ship's different."

The turian laughed. "Yeah. You'll get used to it."

"Yeah."

"How're you feeling?" the turian asked, his voice even.

He considered muttering something blank and useless, changed his mind, and said, "Like it was ten hours on the ground rather than five. Feels like I spent a lot of time lying down and waiting to get back in it."

"The Citadel was the first time you'd picked up a weapon?" All practiced, methodical motion, the turian laid his rifle on one of the workbenches.

"And used it properly? Since Mars," Kaidan admitted. "Since beating the hell out of the target range doesn't really count."

"Doesn't mean it's not fun though."

"Hah."

He quartered the armoury and back, only half noticing the gleaming weapon racks and the carefully stacked crates and the tang of oil. He crossed back again, his eyes jumping to the shuttle, half-shadowed, and the other workbenches opposite, cluttered.

When he'd paused again, the turian had turned his attention to the broken apart pieces of his rifle, scuffed along the stock. Kaidan watched, abruptly aware of the glassy silence. He wanted to ask about where the turian might've been before Earth, before everything changed. He wanted to ask how it had felt, serving on a ship painted all black and white with Cerberus colours.

He wanted – _painfully and terribly, and he _knew_ he shouldn't, but he wanted_ – to ask when it had started. When the turian and Shepard had noticed each other. When it changed or started to change and why. When they had found each other and viciously he forced his thoughts flat.

"I never got around to saying," Kaidan muttered, hunting for words, for his own voice. "What happened at C-Sec. What Cerberus did - I'm sorry."

"Yeah, thanks." The sharp angles of the turian's face softened. "I was – I walked out of C-Sec after, well. After I'd gotten the news about the _Normandy_."

He meant the funeral, Shepard's funeral, and Kaidan heard the painful memory of it, half-buried in the rough burr of his voice. The turian's hands moved again, snapping the pieces of the rifle back into place.

Garrus, Kaidan thought, shoving down a sudden surge of anger. His name was Garrus and they'd worked together for months and they'd been _friends_ for God's sake and here he was, stumbling to fill the silences.

"Did you stay? On the Citadel, I mean?"

"No." The turian leaned against the workbench. "I thought it'd be a great idea to go to Omega."

Kaidan frowned. "What's there?"

"Criminals, mostly," Garrus said, his voice lightening. "It worked out well. For a while, at least. What about you?"

"I took the first assignment the Alliance threw at me. And then another one straight after that." Kaidan shrugged. "I guess I just wanted to do something. Start moving again. Ended up working for a while with a biotic spec ops group."

"Humans?"

"Yeah. You know, proving that we can be almost as good at it as everyone else," he said wryly. "They were good kids."

"You keeping up with them?"

"No," he admitted. "Comms were broken up all over the place after Earth and, you know. If they were easy to find I'd be reprimanding them for not being nearly as good at their jobs as they should be."

Garrus laughed. "Fair enough."

"Today," Kaidan said. "On the ground."

"Damn cold down there," Garrus said mildly. "You mean Taylor, right?"

"Yeah."

"Just what we said. He'd been with Cerberus a while and got given the assignment to work with Shepard."

"But?"

"But he was a decent man working for the wrong people. He started out Alliance, way back. Odd to see him down there, but, well. Good to see he's still breathing."

Kaidan nodded. "Yeah. I get that."

The door slid open, and Vega said, "You know, you're cluttering my work space."

"You _work_ down here?" Garrus retorted. "Haven't seen that rarity in action yet."

Vega grinned. He nodded to Kaidan before crossing to one of the supply racks. "So what did I miss back there?"

"Sorry?" Garrus asked.

"That Cerberus scientist. Doctor Archer."

Garrus nodded. "Right. Remember when we ran into that kid at Grissom Academy, David?"

"Yeah. He recognised you. You and Shepard."

"Yeah." Garrus paused, half-leaning over an open locker. "Long story, but way back, we hit a base, following an SOS. Found the place swarming with geth and one survivor who claimed far too many times that he was absolutely the only human there left breathing."

Vega snorted. "And after you figured out he was bullshitting?"

"Turned out he'd been running an experiment. Project Overlord."

"Because there's a name that inspires all sorts of positive feelings."

Kaidan busied himself at the weapon rack, listening to the easy roll of their words, his hands mechanically finding their way to one of the pistols, light and gleaming. He'd skimmed the reports Shepard had offered up and vaguely he recalled seeing the name, filed alongside Cerberus intel.

"The idea," Garrus said, his tone roughening, "Was that they'd mesh a human with a VI interface."

"You're shitting me."

"Not this time," Garrus said. "We combed through the place until we found – well, we found David. They'd _fused_ him into this thing. This hybrid, whatever it was. We got him out."

"And the lying son of a bitch who set the SOS?"

"That was the worst part. Almost the worst part." Garrus shrugged. "It was Archer, and it turned out he was David's brother."

"Shit," Kaidan muttered. "And Cerberus took him back? After his project collapsed?"

"I guess. For a while at least, until he bailed."

Vega laughed hollowly. "Explains why he looked like he wanted to run the other way when we got there."

"You know," Garrus said thoughtfully. "Every time we run up against them, I wonder what they'll try next. Then I hope like hell I haven't damned us all just by thinking it."

"Next weird-ass Cerberus thing we have to fight, investigate, or just plain run away from?" Vega grinned again, long strides taking him across the armoury. "Blaming you, Vakarian."

"Charming."

* * *

><p>The ship slewed sidewards and Tali grasped desperately at the archway. "No," she snapped into her comm. "I'm not any closer. Tell them – ask them – tell them to back off. Move us out of range."<p>

Koris responded, his words frayed as hers had been. "I'm already overruled."

"_Tell_ them to back off. We have to. We back off and they'll let us go. They always do."

"Which is why we've been trapped like this for days." Koris' voice stayed heavy. "Xen and Gerrel – they're pushing the Heavy Fleet forward."

Tali made it up the steps, fast enough that she shoved her way unceremoniously past a pair of technicians. She mumbled an apology before flicking her comm on again. "And Raan?"

"Undecided."

"She would be," Tali muttered, and immediately regretted it. _No_, she thought, they were all wound tight and exhausted and lurching at last options. All of them snarling at each other while the geth circled Rannoch, always close, never once breaking formation.

Another clumsy sprint took her down the last stretch of the corridor. She thumped the keypad and was through the door before it was halfway open. By the time she was close to the war table, she remembered to slow down, to breathe in steadily, to batten down the wild leap of her pulse.

"Tali," Raan said, reaching for her arm.

"No," Tali responded briskly. She stopped, locked her hands over the edge of the table and said, "I need to say this before you all talk over me. This is absurd. We've kept tabs on that dreadnought since we caught it, what was it, fifteen days ago?"

She recalled it, the huge sleek shape of it as it arched its way around Rannoch, as it drifted between the darting, bright knots of geth fighters.

"It's too big," she said. She was speaking too fast and she knew it, her voice close to wavering. "If we don't pull back now, we're trapped."

"We're already committed," Xen said flatly.

"No. I'm standing with Admiral Zaal'Koris. Our ships will get torn apart if we go up against it. They already _have_."

Xen leaned against the table, her fingers following the vivid glow of the display. "The decision has been made."

"Then how?" Tali demanded. She heard her own voice pitch louder when she added, "How are we going to get close enough to it before it cuts our ships to pieces?"

"It'll be an infiltration mission."

"So who gets to be the bait? Who gets to fly into their guns and draw their attention while your infiltration teams tries and fails to get on board?"

Xen's hands flattened on the table. "You've heard all you need to hear," she snapped. "I'll have the briefing forwarded to you and you will be updated as the mission progresses."

"Alright." The word fell hollow, and Tali wondered what else she should say, _could_ say, that might change the steely determination in Xen's voice. "Anything else?"

"No."

Tali turned away, forcing herself to hear nothing more than the sharp click of her own boots. In her quarters she tried to sleep, her dreams fitful. The third time she woke, her breath rasping hard and uneven, she surrendered. She sat for long moments, boots on the floor, listening to the thrum of the ship around her. Eventually she took herself across to the desk and sat, her thoughts roiling.

Footsteps and someone's voice on the other side of the door jolted her out of reverie. She winced before calling out, "No, not now."

"You're sure? After today, I thought you might appreciate company," Koris said, his voice as muted as it had been earlier.

Tali stood. Almost absently, she keyed the door open. "Yes. You're right, I'm sorry." She sat at the desk again, her gaze on the gloved backs of her own hands. "I keep wondering when this will end."

Koris nodded. He found the spare chair and sat, exhaustion written into every slack line of his frame. "I keep wondering _how_ it will end."

"Not well." Tali shrugged. "It can't."

"We've done everything we can. We've kept supplies through to the civilians. We've seen that requests for help have been sent out."

"And who right now is capable of answering?" Tali exhaled sharply. "The Reapers are – I feel as if I keep saying this and no one is hearing me."

"No, I," Koris said.

"No, not even you, Admiral. Even if we do break through the geth and get down onto the surface of Rannoch, we will have to prepare for the possibility of a Reaper attack."

"Possibility?"

"Likelihood," she said, twisting her hands together. "I know it's hard to see it when all you have are scattered images, newsfeeds and what I'm telling you, but it is true. Simply because we're all the way out here doesn't make us any more safe."

How many days, she wondered, had she spent combing through patchy pieces of visual feed, fragments. The Citadel and whatever had really happened there, the official line being typical and flat and of _course _security had been restored, and would be maintained. _Cerberus_, she had read, and something about the Council themselves, turning on each other, and Spectres, and she had felt an absurd jolt of hope, that maybe Shepard had gotten herself off Earth after all.

"Admiral," she said. "May I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"My father," she said, and stopped. "I mean, not him, really. I mean, the way you all talked so easily about his work, even after everything went wrong on the _Alarei_. About how we could and should use our knowledge of the geth. I suppose I'm asking why we're even doing this."

Koris laughed mirthlessly. "Rannoch is a powerful image. One we grow up with. One we spend our lives speaking of to each other. One we imagine, however unconsciously, every time we leave the Flotilla."

"I know. I remember."

"And to see the possibility of return, and in our lifetimes? Well."

"Possibility?" she echoed archly.

"Likelihood," he retorted. "Could you throw it away, that likelihood?"

"No." The admittance came hushed and strained. "I just – I wish it could have been different. I don't know how. I just – I had hoped it would be different."

"I understand."

"It just feels as if – it's Rannoch, and that means it's about us, all of us, and I'm wishing we were doing things differently. It feels wrong."

"Well," he said, his tone mild. "I believe we already charged you with treason once. I won't be looking to do it again, no matter your current thoughts concerning Rannoch."

Tali laughed, startling herself. "You're so kind, Admiral."

* * *

><p>Three days later, Tali woke, jarring her shoulders against the wall when she lurched upright too fast. She waited, breath coming uneven, while she picked out the familiar cramped details of the room. Her comm unit buzzed insistently. She slapped her hand onto it and grated out, "Yes, what?"<p>

"Priority call coming in," Koris responded crisply.

"From where?"

"We've got an Alliance vessel hailing us."

Without thinking, Tali kicked her way upright. "Alliance," she repeated, mostly to say something, anything to quell the way her nerves had bristled. "What are they saying?"

"They were looking for us, if that's what you're asking."

"It was," she said. An accidental meeting could always be useful, she knew, successful even, but if the Alliance had sent a ship through, if they had responded directly, they would know the barebones details. "Anything else?"

"It's the _Normandy_."

"The – my _Normandy_?" She winced. "Never mind. I'll be there soon."

She ran her hands over the catches on her suit, reflexively checking lines and edges and the seams just above her boots. Briskly she made her way through the corridor, almost deserted this early, and up towards the cockpit. She discovered Koris and Raan already there, both of them leaning over the comm station.

Koris' head turned, and he motioned her closer. He glanced back at the comm and said, "Handing you over to Tali'Zorah."

Tali stepped between them, the inside of her mouth sandy. "Tali'Zorah here."

"Morning, Tali," Joker answered. "Did you guys know you're sitting in the middle of a war zone?"

She laughed, some of the tension seeping out of her shoulders. "We'd noticed. Good to hear your voice, Joker."

"And yours."

He was hedging, letting her shift the conversation on, and painfully she understood. She had been out of comm range for months, and he – and whoever else might be on the _Normandy_ – would be flying straight into a tangle of unknowns.

"We'll organize somewhere we can meet," she said.

"Sounds good."

"We can arrange to clear a space on our ship," Raan said.

"No." Tali shook her head. "That will take too long." Take too long, she thought, and force the _Normandy _crew onto unfamiliar ground, hemmed in by the rest of the Admiralty Board. "Joker?"

"Still here."

"What if we come across to you?"

Silence answered, stretching until Joker said, "Okay. I'll run it through with Shepard and let you know."

Tali swallowed. "She's – Shepard's with you?"

He must have heard the sudden, raw hope in her voice, even through the distance, even through the low buzz of the comm channel. Softer, Joker said, "Yeah, she is. She's fine. She can talk you through it. Back in touch soon."

"Okay." Tali exhaled slowly. "I'll go across."

"And we will come with you," Raan said, her voice measured. "I understand the need for neutral ground, but you do not represent the Admiralty Board on your own."

"I understand."

"You think they will help?"

Tali swallowed back a swell of anger. "Of _course_ she'll help. She's my friend and she's _always_ helped, whenever I've needed it. Whenever no one else would," she added. She turned back to the comm station, hating the slow impatient crawl of waiting. As briskly, she made herself look at the display above, bright livid lines mapping out the shape of the _Normandy_.

"Tali, you still there?"

She flinched, silently cursed herself, and said, "Still here, Joker."

"We'll send our shuttle over. How many with you?"

"Four."

"That's fine. Be ready."

"We are."

Fifteen minutes later, she found herself sitting in the cramped confines of a shuttle that was not quite the same as she remembered. When the shuttle slewed up alongside the _Normandy_, she stood, the rumble of the engines softening. She waited tersely through the airlock cycle, the stiffness in her shoulders finally easing when the shuttle hatch swung up. She strode through first, Raan and Xen following close behind.

Tali turned the corner and discovered herself staring up at Shepard. She swallowed back the urge to laugh – _relieved and painful all at once, because it _was_ her, after all_ – and instead made herself notice Shepard's dress blues, clinging to her shoulders and fastidiously fastened. Still pale beneath the mop of dark hair she'd kept short since after Freedom's Progress, and shadows under her eyes. Garrus stood beside her, and Tali found herself smiling briefly. Beyond, she noted the lights of the CIC, and uniformed crew she could not name, and the low buzz of conversation.

"Tali." Shepard moved first, smiling, clasping her hand. "Welcome aboard."

"Good to be here, Shepard."

"Yes." Shepard glanced past her, her gaze fixing on Raan. "If you'll keep going, Specialist Traynor will take you all down to the war room, and we can talk options."

Tali swallowed. She shifted, but Shepard caught her wrist, holding on until the others had walked past her. "Shepard?"

Shepard grinned and pulled her Tali into a rough hug. "Been a fair while."

Tali laughed, low and choking and full of relief. "I am an idiot."

"No, we overdid the formality."

"Well, yes, but I understand why." Under the tight clasp of her arms, Shepard felt leaner, as if the last long months had chipped away at her too much and too fast. "It's so good to see you again."

"And you. Are you alright?"

Tali laughed again, easing away slightly. "Ask me again after we get this sorted out."

"I hear that."

"And I see you found Garrus somewhere."

"What do you mean, somewhere?" Garrus protested mildly. "I was on Menae with a whole lot of other turians. Where else was I meant to be?"

"It's good to see you too, Garrus."

He clipped her shoulder lightly. "You too."

"What do I need to know?" Shepard asked.

"Xen and Gerrel will push for an infiltration mission."

"On the dreadnought." Shepard grimaced. "That's one hell of a big ship."

"Yes," Tali said. "I want to say no. Koris is with me. We're standing for the civilians. Or trying to. At least, that's the short version."

"Okay." Shepard nodded, her eyes narrowing slightly. "How do you want me to play this?"

"I – I don't know," Tali said.

"Your people, your ships," Shepard said gently. "And I'm not throwing you into something you don't want. I get that there's a lot of unknowns going on here. I mean, hell, I want to know just why you and the geth are shooting at each other again, for example."

"That's the complicated part," Tali said softly.

"So we hash out the fine print later. Right now, your fleet's in trouble, if my incoming data is anything to go by."

"You're right." Tali steeled herself, locking her hands together. "Alright. Then we go through with the infiltration. And I'll need your help."

Shepard grinned. "That's what we're here for, remember?"


	50. Reckoning

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Fifty - Reckoning**_

The next hour rushed past Tali in a blur. She managed to nod to the comm specialist – Traynor, she remembered - and later she stammered through a startled reintroduction to EDI. Traynor had been on Earth, she understood, on the ship by sheer happenstance the day the Reapers had arrived. In the war room, she handed over the dreadnought intel, ignored Gerrel's impatiently rigid stance, and explained the assault on Rannoch.

Small words, she thought, bridging gaps that had lasted centuries, and somehow _she_ had to make it sound worthwhile.

"Okay," Shepard said in that thoughtful, considering tone that Tali knew meant she was silently weighing options. "So we get ourselves aboard, figure out where this signal is coming from, and shut it down."

"And you make that sound so simple," Xen said icily.

"Isn't that what you're asking me to do?" Shepard responded. "You'll have to pull back once we get aboard."

"And who decides your strike team?" Xen asked in the same tone.

"I do." Shepard smiled mirthlessly. "Small, fast, drawing as little notice as possible. Tali, you're with me."

"Of course."

"Here," Shepard said, gesturing at the bright map of the display. "We'll shore up alongside."

"You're thinking the docking tubes," Tali said, realizing.

"Yeah. Thoughts?"

"Possible but unreliable. Some of them are damaged and likely accessible from our side, but we'd have to get closer to be certain."

"Which means we work fast." Shepard leaned back from the table. "Twenty minutes and we move."

She nodded again, the sudden bustle around her absurdly startling. She was aware of Shepard squeezing her shoulder before stepping past her, Raan following. For a long moment she stared at the flickering image of the dreadnought, vast and glowing and she wondered just what they would find inside.

"Hey," Garrus said from somewhere behind her. He brushed her arm and added, "You okay?"

"It's just going very fast," she admitted. "And I know it needs to."

"I know what you mean. You want me to walk you the scenic way back to the CIC?"

Something in his dry, knowing tone made her laugh. "You're looking after me now?"

"Only if you want me to." His teeth parted in a brief smile. "How have you been?"

"Busy and confused," she said wryly. "If this works, we have a lot to talk about."

"Drinks are on me."

"For once."

"I'm offended," he said mildly. He stepped through the doorway ahead of her. "Did you run into the others?"

"For about a second at a time. It's strange," she said, trailing him. "I talked to Kaidan, and then I walked into Liara, and it was as if I knew them and didn't know them."

"You know me."

She laughed, silently glad of his solid, reassuring bulk beside her. "Are you both okay?"

"It was tough. Shit, it was close to six months on Palaven and then I was on Menae and I didn't know where she was. If she was breathing. If we were ever going to – you know."

"Didn't I tell you she'd be alright?"

Garrus laughed. "Well, yeah, but then I'd be acknowledging that you were right."

"I don't know if this is going to work." The words spilled out, rough and frightened.

"Hey." He nudged her gently. "We try. That's what we've always done. We try, and if that doesn't work, we blow it up."

"Your approach to life never fails to calm me down," she told him wryly.

"So," Garrus said genially. "How'd you get yourself hauled in with the rest of the admirals?"

"They thought they were making a point. Appointing me after my father," she said, the truth spilling out raw and without thinking. "But I suppose I thought – if I had to be there, if there was no other way, I should try and make it work. I'm still not sure if it has."

"I know what you mean," he said, softer. He looked past her, his head lifting before he added, "Ready?"

Tali nodded. "Ready."

Terse minutes later, she was waiting again, the impatience thrumming through her. The _Normandy_ was floating beside the dreadnought, cloaked and silent. Dragging moments had passed since Shepard had updated them – _the docking tube was a shaky wreck, she had said, split and barely holding together _– and already Tali was hunting through alternatives, other ways they might get themselves on board before the geth could rush them.

"Change of plan," Shepard said, her voice crackling over the comm. "Whole fucking thing just fell apart behind me."

"Okay," Tali said. "You'll have to find your way to the docking controls."

"Copy that."

"So I guess you'd rather not solo the dreadnought?" Joker asked mildly.

"Not unless I can help it," Shepard responded wryly.

"That's possibly the most insane thing I've ever heard you say, Commander. For this week, at least."

"I like a challenge."

Tali laughed, surprising herself. She nudged Garrus and asked, "So at least some things never change?"

* * *

><p>The combat data trickling into the cockpit was too damn sparse for Joker's liking, bits and pieces of comm chatter almost always broken up when the geth responded. The infiltration team had been on the dreadnought for close to an hour, he guessed, and the huge hulking shape of it had barely moved. He'd eased the <em>Normandy<em> away once they'd confirmed entry – walking in blind, he'd thought, hoping like hell Tali's info came through strong – and all he had to do now was wait. All he _could_ do, he thought sourly.

_Joker glared at the glowing display, pushed back the impatient need to tap the arms of his chair, and sighed instead. They'd been down on the colony for too long, he thought, tracking the damn Spectre – Kryik, he recalled, the turian's name was Kryik – and following up on whatever the hell had been behind the distress call they'd fielded. _

_ Eden Prime was tiny, he knew, the briefing mentioning something about an archeological digsite and Alliance support and a handful of human colonists trying to make it work in the ass-end of nowhere. _

_ The comm station crackled, startling him. "_Normandy _here."_

_ "Joker," Shepard said, her voice strained and patchy with the distance. "You getting this?"_

_ "Barely."_

_ "We need a pick-up ASAP. The starport." _

_ "What happened?" _

_ "Nothing good," Shepard answered. "We got – shit. We got KIA statuses and a hell of a mess down here. Just get here." _

_ He bit back the urge to ask who and how – that part would come later, painfully – and settled himself into the chair. His hands slid deft and knowing across the main console and he felt the ship respond, stirring. Minutes later the landscape was rolling under the hull, rocky pathways carved through ravines until finally he saw the lights of the starport. _

_When the airlock cycle clicked through, he was on his feet and scrambling for the back of his chair almost as fast. There, he was met by Kaidan, Shepard propped bonelessly against his shoulder, her legs buckling. Vaguely he was aware of someone behind them, a woman, clad in scorched white armour. _

_Joker stopped. "What the hell happened?"_

"_Long story," Kaidan said tersely. He scrabbled at the back of Shepard's helmet with his free hand, his fingers sliding clumsily. Numbly Joker helped, finding the catches and pulling. She was ashen beneath, her hair in dark disarray and her eyes half-closed, rolling as if she wasn't quite seeing the corridor, or the lights above. _

"_Medbay's prepped," Joker said uselessly._

"_Get Anderson down there," Kaidan said firmly. "And tell him we saw geth." _

_Joker blinked. "Geth." _

"_Yeah. Like I said, long story."  
><em>

The main console flickered, jolting Joker out of his thoughts. Briskly he scanned it, seeing the glowing lines of the rest of the geth fleet, poised and angular. He dropped his gaze to the dreadnought and froze. Sharply, he asked, "Commander? You hear me?"

Silence answered, dragging and insistent. He tried twice again, the comm station buzzing uselessly. "Shepard, _Normandy_. Looks like the signal's broken. Geth fleet's responding. You need to move."

Beyond, he noted the floating shapes of the quarian ships, arcing slowly closer. For a long moment he frowned, until the dreadnought tilted, the main guns flaring in response.

"Shit." Joker slammed a hand down on the comm station. "Traynor, you following this?"

"Yes," she answered, her voice wavering. "They're forming up. Far as I see it, the dreadnought's defenses are down. Any word?"

"Nothing. Can't get through." He pushed the heels of his hands against his eyes, his thoughts roiling. "Alright. Get down to the war room. Get Raan off the console in there and demand a direct channel through to Gerrel or whoever else. Just get them talking."

"Joker, their ships are already attacking, I can't –"

"You won't be able to stop them," he said furiously. "Just get them talking and slow them down."

"Yes. Alright. Yes."

He bit back the sudden urge to snap at her that she was only wasting time. Squaring his shoulders instead, he reached for the comm station again. "Shepard, _Normandy. _You need to move. We're coming for you but you need to move _now_."

He waited a heartbeat longer before turning his attention back to the main console. The ship twisted beneath his hands, coasting until the engines kicked in strong and fierce. He let the nosecone dip before resettling the _Normandy_'s angle, pitching her forward until she was flanking the great grey hulk of the dreadnought.

"Infiltration team, _Normandy_. Anyone hearing me?"

"…on our way," someone said, the voice halfway to ruined and unrecognizable. "Ship's falling apart. We can't…deactivated -"

"Say again."

Long moments rolled past while he watched the dreadnought spin. Heavy scarlet lines of laserfire sliced the black emptiness. As rapidly, he saw the quarian ships as they darted beneath, main guns swiveling and fixing on the dreadnought.

"…Joker? _Normandy_? You hearing us?"

"Joker here. James, that you I'm talking to?"

"Very fucking funny," James responded breathlessly. "Everything's gone to shit, in case you couldn't tell."

"That was my assumption as well. Coming in close. Where are you?"

"Sitting in a fucking geth transport and heading right for you."

Joker laughed. "Right. You want to waggle the wings or something so I know which one's you?"

* * *

><p>Some days, Shepard thought tiredly, still had the teeth to simply clamp down and startle you silent. Aching under the encasing press of her armour, she was too aware of the stifling angles of the geth ship they'd crammed themselves into, Legion's sinuous hands at the controls. She had a smoking hole in one of her leg plates, and the inside of her mouth tasted coppery.<p>

Beside her, Tali twisted around, her hands shifting nervously. "Shepard, I'm sorry, I had no idea they would do something like this. That they would think that something like this was, well."

"Standard tactical behavior?" Shepard grinned mirthlessly. "I know. Look. I'm going to need to talk to them before we tell them anything about what we found."

"I understand."

"So," Garrus said, leaning forward. "Keeping notice of the geth unit we're about to surprise them with under wraps for now?"

"I'd call it classified need-to-know info," Shepard replied mildly.

The narrow geth ship canted to one side, settling again. She waited, shoulders stiff, while the hatch crawled open. She crossed over first, motioning the others after her. The _Normandy_'s airlock swung wide and she found herself looking at Joker, his expression taut beneath the brim of his cap.

"Commander? You're okay?" He must have seen her face, seen the way her shoulders were rigid, because he added, "You're not okay. What do you need?"

"Order the whole fucking Admiralty Board into the war room. Right now. They fire on us, they don't get the time to prepare a shitload of excuses."

"Got Admiral Gerrel on his way over on a shuttle right now. The others are already there. We – well, we didn't stall them. We tried to."

Shepard nodded. "Good. Liara, could you find Legion somewhere to work?"

"Of course."

Half an hour later, Shepard stalked down the steps and into the war room, still armoured, and her lips tasting sour with sweat. The others followed, Tali pausing beside her, her frame rigid. They'd all be looking wretched, Shepard reckoned, bruised and battered and that was the whole fucking point that she wanted to throw at them, to make them see.

"Commander Shepard," Raan began.

"No," Shepard snapped. "Right now, none of you get to talk. Unless it's because you want to tell me just what the hell you all thought you were doing."

"Difficult calls are often necessary," Gerrel said flatly. "You should know this yourself."

"Difficult calls aren't the choice to shoot at your own allies. At your own _admiral_."

"The attack was ordered on the dreadnought."

"Which was the site of a covert infiltration," Shepard said, each word granite-hard. "Why exactly should I sit my ass on the line for anything else you want? And if you spin me some bullshit about working together well in the future, I will personally see all of you escorted off my ship."

"The dreadnought's destroyed and the signal is broken," Gerrel said. "Which is entirely what was planned."

"You see, Admiral, that's where I think you're not hearing me, any of you." Her gaze swept the room, taking in the glassy silence. "You didn't just fire at the dreadnought, and you didn't just fire at me. You fired at my infiltration team. Unacceptable."

"Commander," Raan said.

"I'm not finished." As fiercely, Shepard said, "My crew shouldn't have to put their lives on the line for you, and as of now, you sure as hell won't be giving them the opportunity to do so again."

"So what do you propose, Commander?"

"You want my help, you do this my way."

"You don't have that kind of authority."

"No? But I sure as hell can turn my ship around and leave you all here."

Koris moved first, lifting one hand. "Commander," he said heavily. "You've made your point."

"And?" she said mercilessly. "I'm not committing my ship, my people or my resources to Rannoch unless you can outline some kind of approach that doesn't involve fucking us over whenever you think it's convenient."

Koris nodded. "We have intel on Rannoch that I can forward. We have scout teams tracking geth movements on the surface."

"That's a start." She leaned back, some of the tension seeping out of her shoulders. "Alright. We need to go over what we found on the dreadnought. You're all going to listen and no, you're not going to like it."

* * *

><p>Tali crossed the empty deck, vaguely aware that she should be sleeping, or eating, or else prodding Liara or Garrus for more details about what they had seen. About whether it was true – <em>really<em> true – about Tuchanka, and the Citadel, and what it meant. She could still smell it, she thought, the sharp tang of the geth ship, and the way it had been pristine, all clean lines and angles.

She keyed the door open and paused, not quite sure why she was here, not quite sure why she was here rather than going over the dreadnought data with Raan.

She steeled herself and stepped inside. She heard the geth unit – Legion, it called itself Legion, and she _knew_ that – shift, turning to face her.

"Creator Zorah," the geth said, its tone neutral.

"Yes. I," she said, and stopped. "I don't know why I'm here. I wanted – can I ask you something?"

The geth stayed motionless, the long cables across its arms and legs stilling. "Of course, Creator Zorah."

"Tali," she said, sharper than she meant to. "I just – why did you do it? All of you, I mean. Go back to the Reapers."

"The Old Machines offered aid," Legion said. "After the Creators attacked."

"But we – but Shepard – the heretics," she said. "You called them the heretics, and they were rewritten. Months ago. A year ago."

"Rewriting the heretics increased the number of geth allied with the Old Machines."

"I don't understand."

"Are you not doing everything within your power to approach your homeworld again?"

Tali leaned against the doorframe. "Yes. What did the Reapers offer you? What form of aid?"

The geth hesitated – _no, _she thought, _they don't hesitate, they _can't_ – _before it strode towards her, its head lifting. "The Old Machine embedded its own code within us."

"Which was why we found you," she said heavily. "But if they were using you to boost the signal, how can you think they were _helping_?" She was talking too fast, she knew, talking as if the geth unit was not there even, talking as if the air might answer instead. She clenched one gloved hand against the doorframe and added, "What exactly did the Reaper code do?"

"The Old Machine code has acted as a form of upgrade."

Tali swallowed. "They've changed you?"

"Upgraded," the geth echoed.

Abruptly she thought of the dreadnought, and how _fast_ the geth had moved, dropping in and out of the shadows, close to soundless. "So when they – when they applied this upgrade – what was it like?"

"The Old Machine took total control of our sensory equipment. Our networking. Even then, we could not comprehend them. They are above us. A single thought was immense, overwhelming. Unknowable."

Apprehension wound its way through her. She remembered Sovereign, and the way its words had fractured the heavy stillness on Virmire, the way its voice had shaken her, clawing core-deep and relentless.

"_We simply _are_. We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been eradicated and forgotten, we will endure."  
><em>

She fought to find words and managed, "So what do we do about it?"

The geth's head tilted as if it was scrutinizing her. "It is our understanding that Shepard-Commander wishes to remove the Old Machines from Rannoch."

Tali laughed, low and choked. "Yes. But the problem is, well, us."

The geth stayed taciturn, unreadable, and she shoved back the urge to walk away, to let the door close on it and its apparently unperturbed silence. She reached for the keypad and froze when the geth said, "Hostile geth fighter squads intend to attack the Creator liveships."

"Go on."

"They are networked to a server on Rannoch."

"On the surface," Tali said.

"Yes."

"But," she said, her thoughts jumping. "If we destroyed the server, they would –"

"They would move to an alternate server." Still unmoving, the geth said, "They would only become vulnerable through direct interface."

"_No_. Absolutely not." As fiercely, she added, "That cannot be an option."

"Then the Creator liveships remain under threat. And the geth intelligences within the server will remain hostile."

Fingers curled against her palms, Tali shook her head. For long moments she stared at the geth, at the unyielding lines of its head. Almost certain she was going quietly mad, she said, "Alright."

* * *

><p>Two days later the end of the day cycle found Shepard toweling water from her hair and absently wondering just when the world had become so much fucking stranger. A half-finished report to Hackett waited for her on the desk, the sentences dangling and Shepard wondering just how to word it properly.<p>

Hell, she thought, how to word it at all. How to say she'd been insane enough to agree to Legion's idea, how she'd closed her eyes and opened them to floors that were not solid and steps that shifted beneath her feet and how the whole server – _the city,_ she'd called it – had finally blinked out into darkness.

A knock at the door startled her, and she briefly considered shouting back that she wanted to be left alone before Tali said, "Shepard? It's me."

"On my way." She padded out of the bathroom, barefoot and clad in damp shorts and a vest, the back of her neck still running with water.

After she'd motioned Tali inside, she noticed how she stopped, pausing, taking in the high white ceilings and the cluttered table and the gear lockers.

Not quite able to resist, Shepard grinned. "Hey, blame Garrus. Not all this crap is mine. You're smirking at me."

"How can you tell?"

"Just a hunch. And because I know you."

"I think it's sweet," Tali told her archly.

"Yeah, falling over someone else's boots in the morning as well as your own is swoon-worthy."

Tali laughed. "You're not fooling anyone, you know."

"You know, I couldn't quite believe it when I found him," she admitted, surprising herself when whatever else she wanted to say vanished. "Well, we ran into each other, technically."

"Yes, but it sounds much more romantic when you put it the first way."

Shepard groaned and nudged her in retaliation. "Oh, God. Stop. Please."

She sat on the couch, her knees drawn up. Tali settled herself opposite, silent for too long, the blurred angles of her face lost behind the curved plate of her helmet.

"Shepard," she said. "I need to ask you something."

"Anything, you know that."

"What you said, after the consensus. All the – data – Legion uncovered. You said they let our pilots leave? Let our soldiers _and_ civilians go?"

Shepard nodded. "They did. They pushed back at any soldiers who fought, but if they ran, they let them go."

Tali nodded and she didn't push, didn't try to jolt her out of whatever mire her thoughts had wrapped her in.

"We thought we knew," Tali said quietly. "What else don't we know?"

Wordlessly, Shepard reached for the back of her wrist, gently squeezing. Tali shivered, rolling her hand up and around Shepard's until their fingers were locked together.

"I feel like an idiot," Tali said.

"Why?"

"I kept saying yes to Koris, and yes to Raan, and hoping it might work itself out. And now we're nearly there, and I don't what I feel. And I certainly can't begin to explain it in words that make any sense."

"You're not an idiot," Shepard said, still holding onto her.

Tali laughed unevenly. "I was talking to Legion earlier. Something it said. About the Reaper code, it said that the way it allows the geth to process, to _think_, is beautiful. And indicative of life. That keeps sticking in my head and part of me wishes Legion had never said it."

"You know," Shepard said thoughtfully. "I can tell you I understand. And I do, sort of. But it's easier being on the outside. It's easy for me to say, sure, Legion's got a way with words that gets under your skin. But I can't know how hard it must be for you right now."

"The worst part," Tali said, and hesitated. "The worst part was when I wished we'd never found it in the dreadnought. When I wished maybe something had gone wrong, and it had never made it off with us."

"Hey, we all have those thoughts." Wryly, Shepard added, "I may have recently wished that I'd punched Gerrel as well as shouting."

Tali laughed softly. "That's different. And completely understandable."

"I don't know. Those helmets and all that armour you all wear? Not sure how that would've turned out for me and my hand."

"As if that has stopped you before. Shepard?"

"Yeah?"

"You should not have gone into the consensus. Not on your own. You should have, I don't know. Let me do it."

"Tough," Shepard said mildly, and tugged at her hand. "It was my decision and it's already done."

"Yes, but," Tali said, and sighed. "I understand. It's difficult, that's all."

"I get it. But you know I wasn't letting anyone else in there. We didn't know what the hell we'd walk into."

"Can I ask you something else?"

"Sure."

"What did you think of Raan's data?"

"I think her scouts are very good," Shepard answered honestly. "The data's not the issue. It gives us a location for the base they're using down there."

"But?"

"But it all hinges on their jamming towers. We half-ass getting through the base, and we'll be isolated too fast."

"Wonderful," Tali muttered. "And then we have to hope the targeting laser holds together."

"You're starting to sound as cynical as me."

"Sorry." Tali shook her head. Her voice firmer, she said, "Tell me all about this thresher maw Joker keeps trying to tell me about, and tell me just how EDI managed whatever it was she did."

Shepard grinned. "Preference of order?"

"Which one's crazier?"

"Probably the thresher maw. But only just."

* * *

><p>The transport swayed, canting wildly to one side. Hands locked over edge of the open hatch, Shepard swallowed, the inside of her mouth dry. Behind, she could see it, the vast gleaming shape of it, the Reaper as it surged upright, as it clawed its way out and into the sunlight.<p>

They'd _missed_ it, she thought furiously. They'd focused so fucking hard on the geth and the jamming towers and the patchy intel that she'd been _surprised_ when the ground had shuddered underfoot.

When the Reaper had swung up against the fierce wash of the sky, claws digging into the walkways and dragging.

"Fleet's responding," Tali said, breathless. "Targeting the Reaper."

"They're still jammed," Vega responded. "Going by sight and a lucky fucking guess. They'll pulverize the desert before they do any real damage."

"Stop the transport," Shepard snapped.

"Shepard-Commander?"

"We let this bastard go and we haven't solved much." As brisk, she said, "Get EDI on the comm. Get through to her and get the targeting laser synched up to the whole fucking fleet."

"You cannot go out there," Tali said.

"This is not a discussion." She felt the rumble as the transport's engines slowed. "Pull back, far as you can."

She turned back to the hatch, one hand reaching for the targeting laser. As fast, she was out of the transport, landing deftly down in the sand below. The air was hazy, the sand twisting in dense ribbons between high yellow stands of wind-blasted rock. Garrus dropped onto the ground behind her and she bit back the ridiculous urge to laugh.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked.

Blandly he shrugged. "Watching the transport disappear into the distance and trying not to think about how fast Reapers can move."

"Thanks," she said, softer.

"Thank me after we get out of here."

"I hear that."

Brusquely, Shepard surveyed the terrain, all columns of rock and sliding sand. Ahead, the ground dropped away to a low plateau, saw-toothed stone on one side. Beyond, the curves of the Reaper filled the sky, four long claws digging into the uneven terrain as it closed on them, relentless and huge.

"Well," Shepard muttered. "Fuck me drunk."

"Later," Garrus responded.

"Looks a lot bigger when you're looking up at it."

"Yeah."

The Reaper's primary weapon glowed, fiercely crimson. She felt it, the rumble of it, shivering through the stone under her feet. It moved again, searching and seeking and she tried to make sense of the slopes and angles of its – _not its face_, she thought – whatever it was above its main weapon, blank and unreadable.

"Garrus, stay behind me," she said.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

"Insubordinate, stubborn-ass turian."

"That's why you like me."

She gulped out a laugh. "You stay back and you only come forward if something happens to me."

"Shepard."

"That's an order. Something happens, and you pick up the targeting laser and you have this bastard in pieces."

"I – yes. Copy."

She was aware of him moving behind her, his boots kicking through the sand. Her gaze on the grey bulk of the Reaper, she settled the targeting laser in her hands. With icy patience she gauged the distance, narrowing every second as the Reaper advanced. The laser whined, the bright ring of its targeting designation closing over the Reaper's firing chamber.

Her comm crackled and Alenko said, "Shepard?"

"Here," she snapped curtly.

The Reaper's main beam sliced the air above her head, burying itself in the stone behind.

"Paint us a target."

"Almost there."

The targeting circle folded in on itself, flaring. The Reaper swayed before she'd registered the way the sky flickered with it, with the _Normandy_'s answer, the barrage slamming hard into the Reaper's hull.

"Kaidan," she said. "It knows you've got eyes on it."

"I hear you."

She edged away, lips dry and her hands latched around the laser. Inexorably, the Reaper was closer already, heavy steps slamming hard against the stone. The clamour of it shook her to her bones.

The targeting point darted up until she wrestled with it, yanking it back into place. The beam swung down, searing. A heartbeat too slow, Shepard dropped beneath it. Her shields buzzed flat. Instants later she felt the shocking pain, her mouth and nose filled with the burning stink of her own armour.

The beam blurred the air above her head again and she rolled madly away. The impact jarred her shoulder against the ground and she swore. When she heard the wrenching snap of her helmet splitting open, she realized the Reaper must've realigned its aim mid-movement.

She fumbled her helmet off, the arid air filling her mouth when she tried to steady her breathing. One of her hands flailed uselessly against the sand. Part of her mind logged the pain, the way she could feel blood slicking the broken edge of her shoulderplate.

The ground rumbled beneath her knees, the roar of the Reaper's weapons filling her head.

Someone grasped her arm, hauling her onto her feet. She staggered against Garrus, blearily aware that he was _there_, that he'd moved, stubborn and so welcome and his arms around her so he could hold her up.

"This counts as something," he muttered tersely. "Come on."

He latched his hands over hers, steadying the targeting laser between them. Desperately she swung it up, the ring snapping across the Reaper. The beam flared, dipping across the stone before rising again. Fighting every instinct to run, to duck, to hurtle away – _anywhere, _she thought_, anywhere but here and staring into it, into the ferocious glare of it_ – she kept the trigger pressed flat until the target narrowed.

When the target blinked out she sagged back against Garrus. Fiercely he propped her up, dragging her with him. The beam bit into the sand in front of her and Garrus whirled, hurling them both back.

The Reaper crumpled, the sky above vivid as the fleet responded. Its beam weapon flickered, scarlet and fading. The great shining pieces of its legs collapsed under itself, faltering and falling.

"Shepard?"

"Mmm?"

"You ruined your armour."

"_I_ didn't." She straightened up and winced. "Oh, shit."

"You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, and knew she was lying the instant she spoke.

The sand stirred, the Reaper shifting uselessly, the lurid red of its weapon systems flickering.

"No," Shepard muttered, her hands sliding towards her rifle.

"Shepard." The Reaper's voice, heavy and ponderous and she flinched.

"Fuck off and stop talking," she grated out.

"Harbinger speaks of you."

"What, you have meetings? Discuss which particular planet or species has pissed you off the most this month?"

"We are nothing you can comprehend. You represent chaos, we represent order."

She spat blood from bruised lips. She was frozen, Garrus as rigid where he stood behind her, his arms still locked around her. "What is with you all always wanting to _talk? _Sovereign, Harbinger, and now _you_, you chatty bastard."

"We are your salvation."

"Heard it before," she snarled, aware of how thin her voice sounded, how worn. "Cut you down."

The Reaper shuddered, or seemed to, sinking into the sand. "We will be waiting."

She fumbled with her rifle, her hands sliding until she settled the stock against her shoulder. A round burst uselessly against the Reaper's hull, rattling. Another spray clanged hard above its main weapon.

"Shepard." Garrus caught her, his hands clamping down hard. "Shepard. It's gone. It's dead. It's _gone_."

"Yes." She was on her knees, she realized, or halfway there, her thoughts spinning. "Hey, Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Reaper. On foot."

He laughed, low and choked. "Brag later. Right now we need you out of here."

"I'm fine." She slapped at her comm and added, "Tali, you following this?"

Static surged before Tali said, "Yes. That was – are you alright?"

"We're standing." She locked her hands over Garrus' and found herself smiling. "We're standing."


	51. Aftermath

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who is following this story.  
><em>

_**Chapter Fifty-One – Aftermath**_

The dry yellow rocks unraveled into the pale blur of the horizon, high columns lashed by the desert wind. Closer, the sand stirred, ribboning against small stones and scrubby thin brush and Tali's boots. She waited, her fingers shaking where they were pressed over her comm, her words somehow firm when she said, "Sending a transport to you."

"Tell them to hurry," Garrus replied, his voice rough. "And call the _Normandy_ in."

She complied, fast and brisk and shoving back the lurching worry of just what they must have seen, of how it must have looked when the Reaper had come crumpling down. She exhaled slowly, her shoulders rigid.

She was aware of Legion beside her, its poised stillness unbroken, James and Liara on her other side. She thought of the geth's words, calm and crisp against the roil of her own mind. She thought of what it had said – _the impossible, life, growing and emerging_ – and just what it had offered.

Not a solution, she thought, but perhaps an ending.

"Creator Zorah," Legion said. "I am tracking an incoming Creator shuttle."

She followed the tilt of the geth's head to where the sand churned, the dull grey walls of a shuttle above. Uneasily she waited while the shuttle settled, aware that it was not over, not yet, not while she had a live geth standing beside her and the fleet somewhere above, frozen and waiting and impatient.

Her comm hissed, and Raan's voice broke through, harried. "Tali?"

"We're here."

"We need to talk. I have the rest of the Admiralty Board patched in."

"I understand."

Beside her, Liara shifted, one hand brushing Tali's elbow. "Your call. We're with you."

"Thanks."

She steadied herself, her gaze finding Raan first as she stepped out of the shuttle, head dipped down against the battening press of the wind. Marines flanked her, weapons clasped in gloved hands.

"Tali," Raan said. "It's good to see you."

"The Reaper's destroyed," Tali said when Raan paused. "It's over."

"And the geth?"

"It – Legion helped," she said, and steeled herself. "He helped us."

"Tali," Raan said heavily.

"No. Listen. Just listen." She pried her hands apart from where they were locked against each other. "Legion gave us the location of the server hub. Legion got us off the dreadnought."

"The removal of one server hub means little in the context of just how many of our ships we have already lost."

Briskly, Tali snapped, "Because _we_ wouldn't pull back. Raan, you read my report. You all did. They let us go. When Shepard came back from the server - the data she gave us - "

Raan sighed. "And now you are speaking of events so long in the past."

"Aren't we all?" She shoved back a sudden surge of anger. "Isn't that why we're here? Raan, we've taken it far enough. We _have_ Rannoch. We're here."

Raan stiffened. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying we start listening. We start listening to Legion."

Raan shook her head. "No. You cannot force an alliance."

"Not an alliance. Not right away." Before her nerves could abandon her entirely, she added, "Maybe not even ever. A truce. An ending."

Her comm crackled, and Gerrel snapped, "Absolutely not."

"What would you prefer?" Koris responded, his voice as fierce as she had hoped. "That you send your soldiers in again, and again, until there is nothing left of us?"

The silence stretched, glass-thin and febrile and Tali found herself staring down at the tiny shifting grains of sand between her boots. She dragged her head back up in time to see Raan motion the marines back a pace.

"This will change everything," Raan said.

"The Reapers have already changed everything."

"Raan, you cannot possibly consider listening to this," Gerrel said.

"Koris is with me," Tali said, harried and too fast. "Raan. The three of us – I mean – just _consider_. That's all I'm asking."

"Go on," Raan said, her voice wavering.

"Alright. I need you to hear what Legion has to say."

Later, shoulders taut, Tali sat with her boot heels buried in the sand. Between her hands she rolled a broken piece of stone, the edges digging into her gloves, dry dirt rubbing onto her palms. She could still hear them, Raan and the geth, the geth's voice measured and unhurried, as if it was unperturbed still, by the whipping wind or Raan's marines or the weight of its own words.

She thought of how the geth had opened itself up to the Reapers, how it had given itself over, its response carved out of desperation.

_"Imagine that for every one of your own people lost, your intelligence waned." _

She flicked her comm on and asked, "Garrus, are you close?"

"Closing," he answered. "Weather's a mess out here. You'll see us soon."

"Good. _Normandy_'s minutes away."

She stood, the stone still clenched in one hand. Peering into the rippling walls of dust, she saw it eventually, the slim shape of the transport as it glided across the sand. After it halted, swaying slightly, Garrus swung himself out first, his armour scuffed and filthy. When he reached up, propping Shepard up so that she could follow suit, Tali swallowed.

"What happened?" Tali asked, and almost immediately winced. She _knew_ what had happened, she had _seen_ the Reaper as it had clawed its way out of the geth base, as the great grey bulk of it had swallowed the sky. "Are you alright?"

"Fine," Shepard said, leaning hard into Garrus' shoulder. She was ashen, Tali noticed, her hair stiff with blood and one of her shoulder-plates hanging loose and jagged. "Well, for a wretched definition of fine."

"Updates?" Garrus asked.

"I've got them talking," Tali admitted.

"And here I thought we'd have to shoot someone else," he said drily.

"Gerrel's furious, so we might have to."

Shepard laughed, the sound thin and brittle. "Wouldn't be the worst outcome. Hey, Tali?"

"Yes?"

"Good work."

She shrugged. "I have a terrible feeling I've just set myself up for even more arguments. But then I remember that that's probably better than what we were doing before."

Overhead, the air shivered, the _Normandy_ arcing down through the whirling sand, the low rumble of the engines familiar.

"I'll leave a ground team with you," Shepard said tersely. "And we'll stay until this is sorted."

"Shepard," she said.

"Negotiations can be a bitch at the best of times."

Tali laughed, soft and low and the sound catching in her throat. Very simply, she said, "Thank you."

* * *

><p>Her back ached. No, she thought, reconsidering, her chest ached. No, her whole body ached, bone-deep and pulsing insistently in time with her heartbeat. Shepard cracked one eye open, saw the bright lights of the medbay above her and briefly wished that she'd kept her eyes closed. She breathed in slowly and gritted her teeth when her stomach somersaulted.<p>

"Shepard?" Garrus' voice, she realized, burred flat with exhaustion.

She heard footsteps, and then merciful darkness flooded across the inside of her eyelids. "That's good. Stand there."

"How do you feel?"

"Like shit." She risked opening her eyes again, peering up at him. "How long was I out?"

"Five hours. Doctor Chakwas says you'll be fine. Just to give you more pain meds as you need them and to not let you move too much."

"Official diagnosis, getting shot by a Reaper?"

"Official diagnosis, not knowing when the hell to stay down."

"We were running out of time," she protested.

He reached for her hand, long fingers locking over the back of her wrist. "That could've gone wrong way too fast."

"Which was why I was the one standing there in front of it." Slowly she sat up, wincing when he had to help her, one hand steadying her shoulder and the other wrapped around her wrist. For long, dizzy moments, she leaned into him, the rough line of his forehead against hers. He was clean, she realized, the dust and grime of Rannoch scrubbed away and the slightly rumpled fall of his fatigues smelling of nothing more unusual than soap.

As carefully, he sat beside her, easing her weight against the arch of his shoulder. "Look. I know why we did it. I know it had to be done."

"What's wrong?"

Garrus hesitated, blue eyes flickering. "It was one shot, Shepard. Just one shot. It burned your armour open, cracked your helmet and you had bone laid bare in your shoulder."

She shuddered, swallowing back the sudden swell of nausea. "That's just fucking lovely. Also explains why I couldn't feel anything there for a while."

"I know when Cerberus – when they – Chakwas says you'll mend, and well."

"Hey." She burrowed under his jaw until she could kiss the side of his neck. "It's okay."

"Yeah. Yeah, sorry."

"Don't be," she said. "I get it."

He tightened one arm around her, somehow tremulous, as if he was afraid he might hurt her. "Still don't quite understand how you were standing after that."

"Tough as nails, you know that."

"Stubborn as hell, more like."

She heard the low, wry amusement in his voice and retorted, "Helps in our line of work."

"I'd noticed." He cupped a hand over her hip and asked, "You okay?"

Before she could think about it, she exhaled, her breath rattling from her chest. Close to shaking, she said, "I'll be okay. I just – shit. It was very big. And it was just one of them."

"Not exactly the first one we've toppled."

"But, Garrus, there's so many of them." She swallowed, the inside of her mouth sandy and scraping.

"And we'll get through them all. One by one. You know that."

"You know," she said, her lips moving against his neck. "You say it like that and I believe it."

"You'd better."

She laughed, soft and tired. "Reapers bitching about me. I'd figure they'd have other things to occupy their time."

"That's what happens when you piss off an entire species." He paused. "Group. Association. Whatever we should call them collectively."

"Collectively they're ugly metal bastards."

Garrus laughed, sharp and almost breathless, as if he hadn't quite meant to. "That's certainly true."

She shifted away from him slightly, tipping her head back so she could look at him, at the tired shadows around his eyes, at the blue markings beneath. "You're wonderful."

"I have my moments." Very gently, he caught one of her hands between both of his. "You want to try standing?"

"Yeah."

It was awkward, and she stumbled against him twice, her bare feet feeling odd and cold against the floor. The second time, her leg bumped one of his spurs and she swore.

"They're where they've always been," Garrus said drily.

"Very funny."

Once she'd levered herself properly upright, he made her drink, the water sliding cool and shocking down her throat. Slow sips cleared the acrid taste from her mouth. Afterwards he sat her back down on the edge of the bed and stayed there beside her, solid and warm and reassuring. Close to sleep, she curled against his shoulder and felt his answering laugh.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered. "You try being shot by a Reaper."

"I'd rather not put that on my list. Shepard?"

"Mmm?"

"You'll be okay?"

"Yeah." She let him ease her back against the pillows, the drag of the sheets prickling and cool against her legs. She reached for his hand, vaguely aware that her thoughts were spiraling uselessly, her tongue thick and useless against the back of her teeth. "Come back later?"

"Always."

* * *

><p>Shepard surfaced from the grey swirl of her dreams, realized she was still looking up at the medbay ceiling, and squinted. She sat up too fast, winced, and blinked when Chakwas caught her arm.<p>

"Doctor," she said, and grinned tiredly.

"Commander," Chakwas said wryly, echoing her tone. "How do you feel now?"

"Slightly more alive."

"Good." The doctor swung one of the chairs out and sat, her gaze frank and unwavering. "Garrus dropped by earlier."

"Mmm. I remember."

"No, again. You were asleep the second time."

Shepard groaned. "Of course I was."

"You were allowed to be, I assure you," Chakwas said archly. "Can you lean forward for me?"

She complied, shuddering when the fabric of her vest tugged against her shoulders. "Okay?"

Chakwas stood, gently rolling her vest up. She felt the exploring press of the doctor's hand before Chakwas said, "Good. There's little blood showing through. I'll need to change the dressing again tonight, and I want you back in here for a check-up tomorrow, but whenever you want to, you can move."

"And if I'd rather never move?"

"Then feel free to take up space for as long as you want, Commander."

"Nice." She wrapped her arms around her shins. "Guess Cerberus got something right after all."

"Right and rather expensive. Though, I would hazard, worth it." Crisply, Chakwas eased her vest back down. "Tali was here, a few minutes before you woke."

"She's on board?"

"As of about an hour ago," Chakwas said. "She asked to speak to you, if you wouldn't mind."

"Of course."

Briefly she let her eyes close, absently aware of Chakwas' measured footsteps before the door whirred, briefly letting in the spill of noise from the corridor beyond. When the door hissed open again, she found herself smiling. "Couldn't stay away?"

Tali's laugh answered her, low and a little hesitant. "Something like that. How are you?"

"Breathing." She pried her eyes open and noticed the uncertain way Tali was standing, hovering almost, her gloves and shoulders still dusted yellow with sand. "How'd it go?"

"Raan and Koris are implementing coordination strategies," Tali said, her words slow as if she couldn't frame them easily. "With the geth."

"You're shitting me."

"No," Tali said. "They're actually – I don't know how well it will work. But the Reapers are worse. That we agreed on."

"What about settling Rannoch?"

"It's a big planet," she said, and Shepard could've sworn she sounded like she was smiling. "Koris will send civilian groups down, and eventually, they'll work with the geth on the ground."

Shepard fought for words, gave up, and simply said, "Shit. I'm impressed."

"You'll have our fleet," Tali said hurriedly. "As and when needed. And, well. The geth have agreed to supply squadrons."

"That's going to be one hell of an interesting message to send through to Hackett. What's the catch?"

The line of Tali's shoulders slackened. "Legion used a modified version of the upgrade code and uploaded it to the geth."

"The Reaper code?" Shepard said carefully.

"Yes."

"I have to ask. Did you know that before or after he uploaded it?"

"Before," Tali said. "It's – well, put simply, it's made them more like him."

"Him," Shepard said, and nudged her.

"Yes, alright."

"You trust him?"

Tali paused, her head tilting to one side. "Yes. I had to think it through more than once, but yes. And if we're meant to do anything about the Reapers, then we'll need all the support we can find."

"What's your plan for dealing with anyone who won't sit down and handle the agreement?"

"Legion's said he'll work with Raan and Koris. I've suggested doing things slowly, or at least as slowly as we can." Wryly, she added, "And yes, I'm still expecting reports of disorderly conduct."

"Disorderly conduct," Shepard said, deadpan.

"Very funny."

"Just get one or two of those big geth primes to sit on anyone who kicks up a storm."

Tali laughed. "I'm not sure that's quite the right road to cooperation."

"Yeah, but I once broke up a locker room fight by just kicking the bigger guy's legs out from under him. Sometimes you need to scare them silent before they'll listen properly. Also I once had a geth prime or two fall on me. They're damn heavy."

Tali leaned against the edge of the bed, her hands still tightly clasped. "I feel like I haven't stopped shaking in hours."

"I get it," Shepard said softly.

"Ridiculous, really. All I did was talk to people. You got shot by a Reaper."

Shepard groaned. "I'm going to be hearing that for days, aren't I?"

"Months." Tali hesitated. "You're going to think this is crazy."

"After what we just did? Doubtful."

"I don't want to stay on Rannoch, or with the fleet." The words tumbled out, rushed and clumsy. "If it's alright with you, I'd like to come back to the _Normandy_."

Shepard blinked. "Tali, I'd be happy to have you. You know that. But – shit, I mean, you're sure? Don't feel like you need to do this just because you feel you should. You want to explore Rannoch, go right ahead. We can always swing by later."

"I said it sounded crazy. I just – we've spent so many years thinking about Rannoch, dreaming about it. But we almost tore ourselves apart trying to get it back." Quietly, she added, "I need to be away from it, I think. Away from them all."

"I understand. You realized you just volunteered to be Adams' new engineering partner?"

Tali laughed. "Adams is here?"

"He was with the retrofit crew, blind luck he was on board the day of the attack."

"I can't imagine," she said softly.

"It was a hell of a day." Shepard swung her legs over the edge of the bed, gritting her teeth through the lurching unsteadiness. "Okay. Let's get you set up with some quarters."

"Shepard," Tali said.

"Hey, I'll just go quietly mad if I have to stare at the ceiling anymore. Besides, I want to see the look on your face when I show you the drive core." She reached for her boots, propped neatly against the side of the bed. She frowned and added, "You know what I mean."

* * *

><p>Kaidan leaned over the desk, his gaze skipping across the vivid lines of the datapad. This early, the briefing room was quiet, sparse pale walls dotted with bright light from the ceiling and the display panels blank. The door opened, letting in Shepard amid the bitter scent of coffee and a surge of conversation from the corridor behind.<p>

"You wanted to see me?" she asked genially, one hand wrapped around the mug.

She was still exhausted, he thought, since Rannoch, since the Reaper. Since Garrus had hauled her back on board white as chalk and barely breathing, her feet slipping against the walkway. The slow day and a half afterwards had held that fragile stillness that he recognized, that frozen uncertainty when you knew you had to dig in and follow the roster and push the thought of it aside, the CO laid out supine.

"Yeah, thanks," he said, straightening up. He slid the datapad across the desk. "This dropped in from the Citadel this morning."

"That's such a sweet way of noting that I need to check my messages first thing in the morning more," Shepard said mildly.

Kaidan laughed, surprising himself. "Not at all. Besides, doesn't taking down a Reaper guarantee time off?"

"For good behavior or to dwell upon rash decisions?" Shepard spun a chair out and sat, the mug clunking onto the desk. "According to Hackett, no. You'd think the man gets _hey, yeah, we totally flattened a giant Reaper_ reports every day." She reached for the datapad. "What am I looking at?"

"It's intel pertaining to Udina. From his offices and his apartment. Files, audio logs and so on. There isn't much."

"But?"

"But he did field calls with operatives suspected to have Cerberus ties. Over six months ago. Closer to a year, in fact."

Shepard frowned. "What the hell does Cerberus know that we don't?"

"Couldn't say."

She reached for the mug again. "How deep in was he back then?"

"He wasn't, as far as I can see. It was some diplomatic issue, something about colony housing."

"So, did he reach out to them later, or did they keep chipping away," she said thoughtfully.

"Yeah. That's what I'm wondering. I just," he said, and paused. "I feel like there's something I'm missing. Something I missed."

"What do you mean?"

"I spent so much time on the Citadel talking to him. Talking to Bailey. Talking to politicians there. And I never noticed a damn thing."

"Hey," she said gently. "We've been over this. You did what you were there to do. No point combing through it until it drives you mad."

"No. No, you're right. I know." He scrubbed at the back of his neck, feeling the locked tension there, under the crisp fall of his fatigues, under his skin. "So, ah. How are you feeling?"

"Better than yesterday," she answered, and grinned lopsidedly.

The comm system hissed, Traynor's voice breaking through instants afterwards. "Sorry to bother you, Commander."

"Go ahead, Traynor."

"Encrypted intel from Miranda Lawson, Commander. She's marked it priority for you."

"Two minutes and I'll be there."

She must have seen the way his face had changed, faster than he meant to, his eyes narrowing, because she said, "Yes, that Lawson. Former Cerberus operative."

"Quite a few of those around at the moment, it seems."

"Maybe a few more if we figure out what they're doing." Shepard stood, small, guarded movements that betrayed just how wrung through she was. "Lawson was, well. Very good at her job."

"Not sure that sounds like a compliment," Kaidan said, smiling.

"A hidden compliment, perhaps." She nodded to him over the rim of the mug before turning, her feet steadier once she was upright.

Left alone, he turned his attention to the datapad again, the next report flickering when he brushed the keypad. An hour crawled past and then another while he scrutinized an updated breakdown of just how well – or not, in Bailey's strident opinion – aspects of the Citadel mop-up were going. After he'd gone over a brief list of Spectre requisitions, he leaned back in the chair, abruptly aware that the blank press of the walls felt heavy, close, the silence prickling.

He discovered the mess hall almost deserted, Vega and Cortez sitting opposite each other over a half-empty tray.

"Hey, Alenko." Vega grinned indolently, leaning back in his chair. "Hungry?"

"You know, I was going to say bored, but then I remembered what we did a couple of days ago."

Cortez laughed. "Go with avoiding work. That's why he's here."

"I heard that," Vega muttered. "Shit. Hell of a day down there. I mean, least last time we got the damn thresher maw to take the leap for us."

"Yeah." Kaidan sat, resting his elbows on the table.

"Shepard said it talked to her."

"If she says so it did. Sovereign spoke. Lots of cheerful conversation about the end of everything, and destruction, and how we couldn't possibly stop it." Kaidan shrugged. "Of course, back then, we didn't know they could talk, so let's just say it was one hell of a shock."

Vega snorted. "Nice. Hey, Alenko?"

"Yeah?"

"You play poker?"

Warily, Kaidan said, "Occasionally."

* * *

><p>Long days rolled into each other, two and then four and then six and Garrus wondered whether the rest of the next week might stubbornly stay the same. Two distress calls in brisk succession and a dead-end Cerberus lead and he <em>knew <em>it mattered, it all damn well mattered, but it simmered impatiently under his skin regardless.

He dragged the cloth down the side of his rifle, glared at it for another lingering heartbeat, and finally laid it on its rack. He straightened up in time to find Shepard watching him over the edge of her book, dark eyes gleaming with amusement.

"What?" he asked. "What's funny?"

"Is it your rifle or the five hours we spent slogging around in the rain today that's really pissing you off?"

He laughed. "Sorry. It's stupid. We go from Rannoch to chasing footprints that don't get us anywhere."

"You want me to rustle up a Reaper for you to chase?" she said teasingly.

"I'll pass."

He curled beside her on the couch, silently marveling at the ease of it, at how well she fit against him. He eased one arm over her shoulder, skimming his hand over the banded muscle there. He felt the shuddering rush of her breath against his neck before she murmured his name. Her fingers caught at his arm, tangling roughly against the fabric there. When she coaxed him up to his feet, he followed her, letting her pull him across to the bed. She hit the sheets first, hauling him down beside her, her hands busy at buckles and catches and eventually his belt.

"Shepard," he mumbled.

She pressed her lips against the side of his mouth, and again, harder. He felt the brush of her cheek against his teeth and instinctively jerked his head back.

"No," she muttered. "Stay."

"Not going anywhere."

Shepard laughed then, unfettered and light. Slowly, deliberately slowly he was sure, she ran her hands over him, the tempting warmth of her mouth following. Halfway to laughter himself, Garrus tipped her over onto her back, tugging her clothes off. She shifted under him until she had her legs up around waist, urging him closer. A roll of his hips had him sheathed inside her, the familiar pleasure of it – _of her beneath him, of both of them together _– stealing his thoughts.

"Harder," she murmured.

Relentlessly he drove himself into her, his hands cupped at the backs of her knees and his head pressed into the side of her neck. Her pulse drummed wildly beneath his mouth, jolting when his teeth grazed her collarbone. Garrus was aware of her moving, sliding a hand between them.

He eased himself up slightly, his hands latching around her hips so he could hold her there, pinned on the sheets while he thrust into her. So he could watch her, the way her head arched back, the way her fingers glided between her own thighs, brushing him before teasing herself again. He lasted her out – just, only just, until she clenched hard and rippling around him – before his own climax shattered him.

In the languid quiet after, they curled together in the rumpled mess of the sheets. He spent too long carding one hand through her hair while she traced the lines of his jaw with her lips.

"Okay?" he asked.

"It's," she said, and looked at him, locking her eyes on his. "On Rannoch, it was -"

"Shepard," he said. "You know, I think I've worked out that it'll get worse."

"Cheerful."

"Realist," Garrus corrected mildly. "I'm not great with words sometimes. But I, ah. I don't want this to end."

She laughed, softly and uneven. "Sounds good. Sounds very good. What if I don't want it to end either?"

"Then we both die taking out some giant Reaper in a well-deserved explosion, or else we learn how to annoy the crap out of each other in old age."

"Garrus Vakarian, bringing the romance."

"Always," he said, and nipped at the side of her neck.

Shepard shoved lightly at his shoulder, her eyes sparkling wickedly. "Still sounds good."

"You're easy to please."

"You reckon?"

"I know," he said.

"Charming."

She eased herself closer, her head pillowed against the inside of his arm. Silence settled between them, warm and indolent and unhurried.

Garrus said, "You're right. On Rannoch we had to – but watching you go out there – and now I'm not making any sense."

She smiled, the motion of it drowsy. "You are. And I know why you stayed."

"That's what love does, I guess." The words rolled off his tongue without thinking, simple and startling at the same time. Abruptly Garrus froze, the breath locking up in his throat. "Yeah," he managed uselessly, and almost hated himself for the way his voice wavered. "I just made that sound bad, didn't I?"

Shepard caught his chin, lifting his head so he could see how she was looking at him, as unguarded and yearning as the way he'd been looking at her. "No," she said. "You really didn't."


	52. Mirrors

_As always, a huge thank you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything.  
><em>

_**Chapter Fifty-Two – Mirrors **_

The firing range rang with the clamour of the rifle. She paused, easing her finger off the trigger, adjusting her stance slightly so that the stock was pulled in tighter. Briefly she closed her eyes, the blankness there resolving into Shepard – _into herself, no, not yet, not _yet_, she thought furiously – _and how she knew how she – _they both, now_ - moved.

How she had dragged it out from every piece of evidence she'd been given, every piece Rasa – or whatever the hell she was calling herself today, wherever she was – had handed over.

The useless promo shots, all glossed up and slick but not quite able to mask the way Shepard held herself, light and limber and poised. Interviews from after Elysium, after the Spectre ceremony, where she stood stiff-shouldered in gleaming dress blues. Combat footage, some of it from inside the Citadel, others snipped from security data out of Noveria, and others, more recent, mined from Benning and Gellix.

She'd watched and watched until she'd been able to echo them, movements eventually surging out of memory and instinct. Until finally she'd flicked on a new batch of footage, and guessed Shepard's plan, and guessed _right_.

It wasn't perfect, and she suspected it might never be, with the way she knew Shepard saw terrain, how she surveyed it fast and always reconsidering, always adjusting.

"_Do you remember anything? Anything at all?" _

"_No." She was rigid with anger, with the ignorance of it, with how she could not form the words fast enough. With how every time she leaned too far forward, the dizziness swelled up and staggered up. With how Rasa had to steady her each time she moved, her feet sliding. _

"_You're certain," Rasa said coldly. _

"_I've told you. We've been over this. There aren't any," she said and swallowed, her voice thickening on the lie, the half-truth of it. "There aren't any whispers. Memories. Whatever you want to call them."_

_And there were none, she was certain, none that she could make sense of. Only feelings, and reactions, and the way she slept badly and often jolted awake and desperately searched for the floor, for the mattress, for whatever was underneath her. _

_To see that it was still solid. To see that it was still _there_. _

"_Alright." Rasa gestured to the table again, to the glowing spread of the datapads. "Let's go over it again." _

Early days filled with core-deep agony while she learned how to move again. While she understood that she'd been woken slightly too early, early enough that it had hurt, hooks under her skin and in her gut. Bits and pieces, she'd been told, and after she'd screamed that it wasn't true, _couldn't_ be true, she had been shown, juddering footage of white-walled rooms and the slow patience of scientists going about their work while the Illusive Man waited.

Bits and pieces left over just in case. Just in case something failed to catch, or stay, or knit itself back together in quite the way Lawson had wanted.

The door slid open. Instead of turning, she barked out, "Yeah, what?"

Silence followed, as if the woman was eying the targets, the haze in the air, the coiled way she was standing. "News from Rannoch."

She laughed. "What did she do?"

She turned, holding one hand out for the report, the findings, whatever it was Shepard had done.

The woman paused, a datapad in one hand. "I'll want to know your thoughts."

"Course."

"I wouldn't underestimate her."

"I haven't."

* * *

><p>Shepard leaned over the console, her gaze dipping briefly to the rapid movement of Liara's hands as she scrolled through the lines of information there.<p>

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "That's it. All Lawson sent through."

Five hours ago she'd stepped back onto the _Normandy_, vaguely considering that it was deeply unfair that half her crew had gotten rostered for half-day Citadel downtime while she'd spent an hour wrangling with a secure connection through to Lawson.

"It's more than we had before," Liara said. "She's been aware of Kai Leng's movements for some time."

"Yeah, but there's still a huge gap between her getting assigned to the Lazarus Project and him sticking his head up on the Citadel." She frowned. "Lazarus Project. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to call it that?"

Liara smiled, the motion of it softening her face. "There are worse titles."

"Yeah, they could've called it the Digging Me Up Project. Or the Stick the Bits Back Together Project."

"Very funny." Liara shifted away from the console and added, "There will be something else in there. Something that links him to other information. He's not a ghost. And even if he was, I'd still find a way to trace him."

Shepard laughed. "I'd believe it, too."

"What are your thoughts on her father?"

"Henry Lawson." She shrugged. "I'll go with Lawson's instinct that he's not playing nice, and that he's a danger."

"But is he only a danger to his own daughters, or is he in deep enough with Cerberus to cause friction?"

She pushed a hand through her hair. "Glad to know I'm not the only one who wondered that."

"Do you trust her?"

Shepard hesitated. "Yeah. I do. She hasn't been Cerberus since we walked out of the Collector base. Not sure whether she was when we walked in, either."

"It can be difficult to separate yourself from something that has been a huge part of your identity," Liara said carefully.

"Yeah, I know. I hear you. But whatever else Lawson's up to, she won't fuck us over. I know that much."

"What was the price?"

"For the intel? I've allocated Alliance resources for her. Credits mainly, limited access to information as and if she requires in the future, all to be okayed by me."

Liara nodded. "I understand."

She straightened up, aware of the knotted strain at the back of her neck when she moved too fast. "Okay. I'm going to go waste time before plunging headfirst into my reports."

Liara laughed. "I admire your work strategy, as always."

At the door she paused, one hand hovering over the keypad. "You okay in here?"

Liara blinked, as if she had not quite been expecting the question. "Ah, yes. Of course. Lots of work to do."

"Don't drive yourself mad," Shepard said wryly.

She stepped out into the corridor, discovering that the mess hall was bustling, the air thrumming with conversation. She paused long enough to find coffee, ignoring Vega's resigned glance when she gave into impatience and filled the mug with less-than-boiling water. She ensconced herself beside Garrus, her knee brushing his. Wrapping her hands around the mug she listened to the familiar lilt of their voices around her.

"No, it doesn't quite work that way," Kaidan said, his hands curled on the table.

"Well, fine," Vega replied. "But you know, if I was a Spectre, I'd want to know who all the other Spectres are. Just because."

Shepard laughed. "Given all the bad luck I've had running into other Spectres, that might not be a bad idea."

"Hey," Kaidan said in mild protest, before he smiled.

"Look at it this way. Two out of the only three other Spectres I've met before have tried to kill me."

"Kryik and Arterius," Kaidan said. "And?"

"We ran into a Spectre on Ilium," she said. "Tela Vasir. She and I had a disagreement about exactly how Spectre resources should be used."

"You tried to drop a skycar on her," Garrus said drily.

"It worked. To a point, at least."

"It was a mess," he retorted.

"That whole night was a mess."

* * *

><p>Hours later, Shepard ambled out of the shower, loosely clad in a towel, her hair sodden and the rest of her tracking droplets across the floor. Deliberately, she left the door wide, the heat and the steam spilling through behind her.<p>

Sitting on the couch, a datapad balanced across one knee, Garrus looked up. He eyed the wet shining patches of her footprints and said, "You were the worst person in the barracks in basic, weren't you?"

"Hey, everyone's the worst person in the barracks in basic. Least I wasn't the snorer."

"That you know of."

"Fair point." She flopped beside him. "God. That was so long ago. You know what I still remember?"

He shook his head silently.

"Learning that early morning has a completely different definition when it's your sergeant getting you up."

Garrus laughed. "Weapons maintenance for me. Wasn't that I couldn't do it – I could – but that part about getting your ass kicked because you took two seconds longer than the guy next to you."

She grinned. "Happens to us all. You just end up learning fast."

"And then hoping someone else's ass gets kicked next time."

She leaned against the slope of his shoulder, water dripping into his collar. "Something Lawson said stuck with me."

"She continuing to shock by actually displaying recognizable emotion occasionally?"

Shepard snorted. "Not just that. She said when she was put in charge of the – well, the project, the restoration project – "

He must've heard the way her voice wavered – _stupid_, she though, _fucking stupid that it still had its hooks in her_ – because he settled an arm around her and waited, waited for her to steel herself.

"She said the Illusive Man recommended a, well. A control chip."

"A _what? _And is it as awful as it sounds?"

Shepard smiled. "Yeah. His reasoning was that I was a complete unknown to them. And that maybe I'd spent quite a bit of time blowing up Cerberus facilities, tidying up their problems whether they wanted it or not, and generally not being all that well predisposed to them."

"One way of putting it," Garrus said.

"Hey, if you're going to go breed rachni with few to no safeguards in place, then you don't get to complain when they break out and kill everyone." She reached for his free hand, sliding her fingers between both of his. "I guess he wanted me on a leash."

"Is it weird that them breeding rachni worried me less than that place where we found them trying to replicate whatever the hell the thorian could do?"

Wincing, she shook her head. "Thinking on it, no, probably not weird."

She felt the low rumble of his laughter in answer before he said, "What was Lawson's response?"

"She refused. Flat-out. Her reasoning was that changing me meant I wouldn't be me."

His hand tightened over her hip, squeezing. "She's not wrong."

"Yeah. Course, to her, me being me meant a higher possibility of mission success. It just – God, I don't know why this is getting to me."

"It's getting to you because it's a hell of a thing to hear," he said gently. "Whichever way you look at it. Means the Illusive Man's even more of a bastard than we thought, and that Lawson's even more calculating than we thought."

Shepard laughed, startling herself. "True enough."

Softly he smoothed his fingers through the soaked mess of her hair, parting the strands. "Feels strange," he said, when she arched her eyebrows at him. "When it's wet. Heavier."

"Funny how that happens," she said, deadpan.

"Well, it's not like I spent a whole lot of time touching humans' hair before we got together," he protested.

She laughed again, her shoulders shaking. "Good to know."

"It wasn't _that_ funny."

"Yes, it was."

The comm station on the desk buzzed, and Liara said, "Shepard, I'm sorry to bother you."

"No problem. What's up?"

"I've just had an incoming request from Asari High Command."

Shepard blinked. "They want help?"

"They have a commando team who've stopped reporting in."

She straightened up. "Does this mean recon or mopping up for us?"

"Maybe a little of both. It's complicated."

"Okay. I'll be there in ten minutes."

* * *

><p>The monastery was a wreck, Shepard noted, huge holes already torn through the high windows, letting in snow and the bitter wind off the mountains. Emergency lighting threw pale pools of illumination across the walkways, brushing chairs and tables and blank consoles. Fifteen minutes since they'd cleared the landing area, and already they'd noted four dead commandos and the stink of smoke.<p>

She tapped her comm and said, "Liara, you still reading us up there?"

"Clear," Liara answered.

"We're finding nothing," she said briskly. "Wherever these asari are, they're well hidden."

"Reaper movement?"

"Nothing we've seen yet. We'll keep you updated."

"Thank you, Commander."

Her gaze on the unhelpful darkness of the corridor ahead, Shepard advanced slowly, the others trailing her. Garrus snapped his flashlight on first, the beam slicing the shadows and revealing only another room, as empty and as still.

"So," Vega said. "I'm still not clear on the whole Ardat-Yakshi thing."

"I've only ever had the fortune to run into one of them," Shepard responded wryly. "I'm hoping the ones here are somewhat different."

"Have to be, right?" Kaidan said. "Here because they're aware of how dangerous they are."

"Yeah, but it's one thing to cloister yourself away during peacetime. Whole other when there's Reaper troops crawling around."

"Yeah, but Commander, you said they basically eat people's brains," Vega said. "Or minds."

"That part's true," she said absently. "Don't worry, Vega. We'll protect you and your brain."

"Thanks, Commander. So much."

The corridor swept up to steps, sloping down into a high domed hall, the glass shimmering and punched through in places, fragments littering the floor beneath. The stillness clung here, Shepard thought, heavy and cloaking the stiff angles of closed doors and the fringing green ferns that arched up alongside the pillars.

Slow minutes took them deeper into the monastery, through a narrow warren of corridors and past small bunk-rooms, all of them sparse and white-walled. When the ceiling opened up above them again, she paused, noticing more pillars and the pristine lines of railings and tables.

"Shepard," Garrus said tersely. "Reading movement. Straight ahead."

She followed his gaze to the gloom of another archway. "Find cover and let's watch our timing. On the optimistic chance we're about to run into one of the asari and she just wants to talk, let's look before we shoot."

Shoulder pressed against one of the pillars, she stood poised, her eyes locked onto the archway. Eventually – slowly, painfully slowly – the silence gave way to footsteps, and then sloping shadows jagging their way across the floor. Shepard frowned, squinted, tried to make sense of just what she was looking at, and hefted her rifle.

They _were_ asari, she thought, or they had been, their limbs all lengthened and dragging. One of them lifted a clawed hand, biotic energy rippling around clenched fingers. Behind, another jerked forward, jaw dropping open before she shrieked. _No_, Shepard thought, she'd howled, keened, as if she was trying to shatter the air itself.

"Well," Garrus muttered. "That's new."

"Going to need a new name for this lot," Shepard responded.

Another surge of energy carried the asari forward, the others following.

"Floating screaming nightmare? Thing that I never wish to lay eyes on again?"

"Works for me," she said, gauging the distance to the first asari.

She moved, twisting away from the pillar, her first shot clipping the asari's shoulder. The asari staggered slightly, her biotics flaring blue and fierce. The second round toppled the asari's leg, and when she hit the ground, Garrus' follow-up shot shattered her jaw.

The shuddering thump of a grenade scattered the rest of them. A searing wave of biotic energy shivered between the pillars and Shepard hurtled aside, her shields whining. Another followed it, and another, the air glass-thin and singing. Somewhere behind, she heard Vega swearing before the rattle of gunfire drowned his voice.

"How many?" she asked, rolling upright.

"Still got one," Garrus answered. "She's moving."

She turned, her eyes finding the last asari where she hovered – _impossibly,_ _it seemed, her whole frame flashing ferociously bright_ – her hands unfurling.

"Kaidan," she snapped. "Drop her onto the floor."

He nodded, and heartbeats later a heaving rush of biotic energy sent the asari spiraling sideways. When the asari staggered into the pillar Shepard moved, vaulting off one foot. She ploughed into the asari's shoulder, the impetus carrying both of them further. As viciously, she slammed the butt of her rifle into the asari's head. The asari swayed, her whole frame buckling. Shepard spun her rifle, her finger curling over the trigger. The impact blew the back of the asari's head out, her body going loose and heavy as she hit the floor.

"God," Kaidan muttered. "Look at them all."

"Yeah." Shepard swiped sweat from her lips. "Okay. Let's see what else we can find."

* * *

><p>The last hours of the day wore through too fast, the CIC bustling and Traynor calling her over to review the afternoon's incoming messages. Afterwards, and after she'd stopped off in the medbay long enough for Chakwas to check over her shoulder, Shepard made her way to Liara's quarters.<p>

There, she discovered Liara still at the flickering spread of her consoles, forehead furrowed. Mildly Shepard said, "You okay?"

"The Lesuss reports," Liara said absently, the smooth lilt of her voice not quite masking the tension in her shoulders. "Forgive me for saying this, but it is one thing to see the evidence from Earth. From Palaven."

"Another to see it happen to your own people," she said softly, understanding. "I get it."

"Did they _know?_ The Reapers, I mean. Did they know they were turning – changing," Liara said, and shuddered. "Did they know their victims were Ardat-Yakshi? And if they did know –"

"How did they know," Shepard said. She spun out the spare chair and sat. "I don't know. It's too easy for me to think of them as mindless. Opportunistic, maybe, but not thinking the way we do."

"They don't think the way we do. That's the point." Liara added, "They think so differently that all we can do is guess, guess wrong, and then attempt to one day guess right."

Sharply, Shepard said, "Do I have to drag you out of here and forcibly pour half a bottle of wine into you to get you to look away from that damn screen?"

Liara froze. Abruptly she laughed, the sound halfway between surprise and relief. She turned finally, her hands sliding on her knees. "No. And I am sorry, Shepard."

"Talk to me," she said, gentler.

"Even after I sent the Lesuss report back through to High Command, they were, well. Exceptionally cagey."

"Even for them?" Shepard asked wryly.

"Even for them." Liara tipped her head to one side before she said, "We've been officially thanked, and they would like to keep in contact. Information exchange, that sort of thing."

Shepard frowned. "I thought they'd been operating under a strict _shore up your own borders_ policy."

"They have and they still are, to an extent. But they can't ignore Tuchanka or Rannoch."

"Or Cerberus." She scrubbed a hand across the back of her neck. "Okay. They want to lend aid, talk possible negotiations, I'll listen. I'd appreciate it if you'd help me wade through the politics."

Liara smiled. "You haven't been doing all that badly."

"Miraculous, I'd call it," she said archly. "Besides, on Tuchanka, I just followed Wrex around, and on Rannoch, Tali did all the talking."

"It worked," Liara said, firmer. "Full settlement on Rannoch will take years, and it won't be easy, but it will happen."

Shepard smiled unsteadily. "Years," she echoed. "You think so?"

"I have to think so."

"Yeah. I hear that." She stood, forcing her thoughts blank. "Come on. I promised Vega a round of poker, and I could do with an extra victim."

Liara shot her an unconvincing glare. "How charming."

* * *

><p>The shuttle settled, the last low rumble of the engines quieting. When the hatch slid open, Shepard hopped out first, the long hours of the day ruining her balance. She caught at the side of the shuttle and swore. She was aware of the others behind her, moving with that slow, practiced gait that meant you were bone-tired but trying not to let it slip through, not yet.<p>

Garrus trailed her into their quarters, into the blessedly welcome silence there.

Near the gear lockers, she shucked the weight of her weapon harness off and groaned. "Tell me why we keep doing this."

"For the safety and salvation of everyone in the galaxy, and because we know which way round the guns go."

"Waiting a while to use that one, huh?"

He crossed the floor, unhooking his rifle with deft hands. "Well," he said. "I may have been."

Wordlessly she worked her armour off piece by piece before turning to help him with the last of his. After she coaxed him into the shower with her, she discovered bruises and a long open slice that crossed the edge of his shoulder. Very gently she held him under the soft spray, watching as the water sluiced away grime and dirt and thin ribbons of blue blood.

"You're a mess," she said lightly.

"One of those big bastards," he replied.

"You need to learn to duck."

"I did duck," he protested. "Not my fault he did the same thing."

She mopped at the junction of his elbow with soap, and then the slope of his arm above, his skin rough and somehow silvery under the play of the water. "What?" she demanded when she caught him regarding her.

"You know exactly what I look like."

"Yeah, but sometimes I forget." She grinned and turned her attention to the angles of his chest, to the dips and lines of the plates there.

"No, you don't," he said wryly.

"Oh?" Shepard slid her hands down to the jut of his hips and felt the way he shuddered in response. "I can just stop then, if you'd prefer."

Garrus laughed. "Did I say that?"

"Stubborn turian."

Afterwards, when they'd finally dragged themselves back out and onto the damp tangle of the sheets, she bowed her head against his shoulder, branding the sensation of him under her and inside her into her thoughts. As if she could keep the rest of it – the ship, the world, everything – at bay if she simply stayed still.

Gently, his teeth scraped against her neck, lingering over the uneven thrum of her pulse. "Hey," Garrus said without moving. "Okay?"

"Yeah." She smiled, her lips moving against the angles of his mouth, aware of the familiar metallic taste of him. "Long day."

* * *

><p>Morning found Kaidan in the briefing room, gritty-eyed and staring at the console screen, his concentration wavering every time he tried to sort through the glowing lines there. The third time, he surrendered and just sat back in the chair, eyes half-closed. When the door opened behind him, he blinked, turning in time to notice Shepard as she stepped inside.<p>

"Hey, Commander."

"Hey." She paused, dropping two datapads onto the table. Her gaze flicked from the first one to him and back again before she stopped, frowning. "You alright?"

"Yeah, fine."

"You look like hell," she said baldly.

He laughed. "Yeah. Couldn't sleep. That and, well. Lighting's bad in here."

"Sure it is." She raked another searching look over him. "You keeping up to date with Chakwas?"

"Yes," he said wryly. "You think it's possible to avoid her? That woman knows everything, I swear. And you can't hide anything from her, either."

"That's why she's invaluable," Shepard retorted lightly.

Almost without thinking, he lifted a hand to the back of his neck, fingers digging into the locked tension there. "She is. What's the plan for today?"

She dragged a chair out and sat. "Got a message through earlier from Aria T'Loak. She's on the Citadel, it turns out, and she has extended an offer of alliance."

"I recognize the name." He shrugged. "You worked with her before?"

"I'd say we asked each other a few questions on Omega. It was an information exchange."

"About Garrus."

"Yeah, but we didn't know it was Garrus at that point. I was looking for a merc and hoping I could convince him to stop whatever the hell he was doing and jump onto a Cerberus ship." Lopsidedly she grinned. "Course as it turned out, when you actually know someone, it's easier to get to an agreement."

"I'm sure it was," he said, and winced when he heard his own voice turn sour.

She froze, her gaze darting up and locking on his. "Alright. Just say it."

"What?"

"You want to ask why him? You want to ask what it felt like, finding him on Omega? You want to ask when it started? Really? You think that's got anything to do with you?"

Fiercely he responded, "I know it's got nothing to do with me. Not now."

"But?"

"Christ, you never back down, do you?"

Her grin returned, brief and mirthless. "No reason to start now."

He hesitated, not sure what to say, what he even _wanted_ to say. "I thought – shit, I don't know what I thought."

"Then why are you here?" Shepard asked, her voice closed off, implacable. "You could be anywhere else, doing something useful. Hackett could've used you. Your spec ops kids could've used you. Hell, Kaidan, any squad in the Alliance would be lucky to have you."

The silence rushed back between them, thick and stifling. For long moments he stared down at his own hands, flat against the table. "I'm here because I figured I'd do more good here."

"Right."

Teeth gritted, Kaidan added, "And no, I'm not here because I'm trying to change things. I know I've not handled everything well."

"Give you a gun and a target, and you're fine."

"Yeah, but then you get stuck in downtime," he said ruefully. "Okay. This isn't going to sound convincing. Probably not even going to make much sense."

"That's reassuring," she said drily.

The words rushed out, juddering and raw. "I'm not trying to get between you. I'm not. It just – feels like I've missed so damn much, before Earth and after and I'm running to catch up."

"Okay," she said, her voice level in that way that he knew meant she'd hear him out.

"I wanted so much to blame Cerberus for so much of it. But there you were, telling me you'd worked with them and for them but that that was it. From the outside, it seemed like you should've known more, or been able to do more and I _know _how damn unfair that sounds."

Softer, she said, "I get it. You never see all the angles unless you're in the middle of it."

"Yeah. And I guess it – look. I missed you," he said, the soft honesty of it startling him. "But I get it. So, ah, can we start this over, maybe? Forget how much of an idiot I've been?"

She laughed, the sound of it unguarded. "Course we can. And you're not an idiot. Not usually, anyway."

"So supportive," he muttered, halfway to smiling. "Thanks, Shepard."

"That's what I'm here for."

"So," Kaidan said, and shrugged helplessly. "You were talking about alliances?"

"Possibilities of," she answered. "I don't know. Aria T'Loak is shrewd as hell on her own turf. But if she's been ousted, she'll be out for blood."

"And we've got time to get in the middle of something like that?"

"Truthfully, I don't know. It'd be easy to say sure, let's welcome anyone who's willing to point weapons at the Reapers. Which is," she admitted. "A fancy way of saying our options are limited at best and unknown at worst."

"Typical day," he said, and almost kept the smile out of his voice.

"Hah." She shoved the datapads across the table. "I figure we start by talking to her."


	53. Tidings

_As always, such a big thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Fifty-Three – Tidings**_

Garrus yanked the sparring pad strap tighter around his wrist, fumbled it, and just used his teeth instead. He heard Shepard's answering laugh and settled for glaring before he braced himself on the mat. "Preferences?"

"Something simple," she said. She eased her own footing, loose-limbed and clad in shorts and a grubby vest, one short sleeve dipping over her shoulder. "You go over the data?"

"From Aria T'Loak? Yeah." He tipped his hands up and gauged her distance. "That was delicate there for a while."

"She wanted results," Shepard said. Two lithe steps took her closer, gloved hands curling. "That was the deal. Flexibility."

"That and she had to know there was no way in hell we'd lean on Bailey to let someone like Sederis out and about."

"True." Her first two punches landed, hard but measured, tightly controlled.

"Don't know about you," he said thoughtfully. He paused long enough to absorb the thudding impact of her next swing. "But I'm not all that good on how she reeled us in with that before dropping Omega on us."

Omega, he thought, Omega all locked down and glittering with Cerberus symbols and Aria T'Loak would've damn well _known_ they couldn't've backed down, not either of them. Omega, where somehow the Illusive Man – or someone speaking his words - had gotten his claws into the messy warren of the station and tried to tame it.

"Got to give her credit for contracting her dirty work out," Shepard muttered absently.

She adjusted her balance, her shoulders tightening. Her follow-up strokes sent him back two paces before he caught himself. After he'd noticed how she was grinning at him, challenging and sweat-speckled under the unkempt thatch of her hair, he responded as fiercely, shoving her back and back. Retaliating, Shepard darted sideways, the heel of her hand sending one of the pads jolting.

Garrus laughed, knowing how she moved, knowing how she eased it back in here – just a fraction – so that it became something like a game, the ferocious back-and-forth pattern familiar. He walked her backwards across the mat, each shielding block with the pads soaking up her strokes.

After she'd pushed him back the same way, she held up her hands and said, "Okay. I'm done."

He sat on the bench, aware of the ache in his shoulders. Almost absently, he worried at the straps again until he had them loose.

"Thoughts?"

"Omega doesn't change," Garrus replied. "She'll think it does, and maybe little parts of it will. But the parts that matter, the parts where people get hurt and keep getting hurt – that'll never change."

"But?" She perched beside him, working the gloves off.

He tilted his head. "But what?"

"What else are you thinking?"

"And here I thought turians were meant to be unreadable," he said wryly.

"Not when you're around me, you're not," she told him. "Well, maybe sometimes. When you're really working at it."

"I'm thinking I'm really uncomfortable about the idea of going back to Omega," he said.

"Uncomfortable."

"Sure, unless you want me to say no, no way, absolutely no fucking way," he amended drily. "Which was admittedly my first reaction."

"I get it." She shifted on the bench, looking up at him.

"But if Cerberus are dug in there, I'd sure as hell want to know why." He hesitated. "Omega's the ass-end of nowhere. No one would blink if the station exploded tomorrow."

"Which," Shepard said, echoing his own tone, "Makes it the perfect place for Cerberus to set up shop."

"Yeah," he said, breathing the word out. "Anything on Petrovsky?"

"Liara got her hands on some intel, along with what Aria brought with her. He's been around a while. Started out Alliance, First Contact War."

Garrus clicked his teeth together. "So he's thinking humanity's been shafted and thrown himself in with Cerberus."

"That'd be my assumption." She rubbed at one sweat-slicked shoulder, her expression thoughtful. "Intel points to him being smart. Shrewd."

"What's the catch?" he asked, and felt it when she laughed, her frame shaking against his. "Apart from the fucked-up terrain and the fact that it's Omega, I mean," he added.

"Catch is Aria wants this done small and fast."

"How small?"

"Just me," she said.

He paused, aware that half of it – _more than half of it, crawling and insidious and _still _under his skin_ – was the roiling jumble of his own memories, of all those stretched-out hours spent looking down at that damn bridge, of how he'd locked himself up inside his thoughts and sometimes, painfully, he still did.

"What did you say to her?" he asked, hearing his own voice waver.

"I told her she could take her strategic recommendation and shove it up her ass," Shepard said blandly. "She might've spent years ruling Omega from a chair, but I know how combat works on the ground. She wants the help on the ground, she can agree or go find someone else."

Despite himself he laughed. "Can't quite see someone like Aria T'Loak taking that well."

"She didn't. But hey, we're all about negotiation, so she gave an inch on numbers, and I gave an inch on muscling in on her plan."

He leaned the side of his head against the top of hers. "Thanks," he said, very quietly.

"Don't thank me yet. You're coming with me."

"Rather that than pace around here wondering what the hell's happening down there."

For slow, easy moments he sat beside her, feeling the easy rhythm of her breathing.

"You want to hear some actual good news?" she asked teasingly.

"Stun me."

"I was talking to Tali earlier. Basic settlement on Rannoch is proceeding with no deaths so far, a few fights, and a lot of misunderstandings. But," she added, smiling. "They've got geth and quarians plotting out settlement sites together, and they've also sent separate squadrons to liaise with Hackett."

"It's working," Garrus said, and blinked. "Don't tell Tali how surprised I just sounded. She'll never let me hear the end of it."

"Bet she never thought she'd have to sign off on a troop movement order for a bunch of geth."

Garrus laughed. "And I bet Hackett never thought he'd accept one, either."

When she stretched, one hand idly sweeping through her hair, he asked, "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Always and anything, you know that," she answered instantly.

He paused, wrestled with what he wanted to say, figured it was probably going to come out tangled anyway, and said, "Does Kaidan seem better, to you? I mean, less taking himself off to his quarters every time we get back on board?"

"Yeah, he does." Gently, she added, "And I know what you're really asking. We've talked it through and he's fine. Or he'll be fine."

Garrus groaned. "That obvious?"

"A little," she said lightly.

"I guess I haven't known what to say, so I haven't said anything."

Shepard smiled, soft and not mocking. "It's fine. Humans are as good as avoiding saying anything as you lot are."

"My lot," he protested. "Stupid, really. Too much clean-up after the Citadel, and then I figured it wasn't quite the right thing to suddenly drop into conversation in the mess hall. Or, you know, the armoury or anywhere else."

"I get it," she said. "Sometimes we wrap so much up in what we do. How much time we spend running around getting too much done too quickly. Means it's easy, too easy sometimes, to let the downtime run away."

"Or, you know, it could be that the last time I ever considered saying something along the lines of _hey, I know you and her used to be together, but now we're together_, I was about eighteen," he said drily.

Shepard laughed. "Can I make a suggestion?"

"Sure, unless it's about how I arrange my workstation."

"That abomination has never been arranged," she retorted, smiling. "Use his first name around him a bit."

Garrus blinked and said, "Shit. I haven't been, have I?"

"I'm honestly not sure. Sometimes, maybe. But feeling like you're stuck on the outside can be tough."

"Yeah, I hear that."

She hauled him up off the bench, her hands sliding down to his hips. "Come on. Time to go convince everyone that retaking a station full of Cerberus troops stuck inside the shell of an asteroid is a good idea."

Garrus laughed. "My advice? Don't use those words. Any of them."

* * *

><p>Joker drifted halfway to sleep, his chin on the flat of his hand and his elbow planted precariously on the very end of the chair arm. Footsteps on the walkway behind startled him and he flinched upright before he muttered, "Yes?"<p>

"How long have you been sitting there?" EDI asked, her voice calm.

He winced. "Since the ground team left."

"Jeff."

"I know, I know." He squinted at the main console screen, filled with the jarring angles and red glow that was Omega, floating. He'd been staring at it for hours, at the glittering array of Cerberus ships that ringed the slant of the asteroid.

_The comm station crackled, followed by Shepard's voice, brief and terse. "You hearing me?"_

_ "Got you clear," he answered. "You get inside alright?"_

_ "It was tricky," she said, her tone lightening. _

_ "Define tricky."_

_ "Cerberus mechs, ongoing gang warfare, and power outages. So yeah, it's a shitstorm down here."_

_ "Workable?" he asked. _

_ "So far I'd say yes. But I'd wager it's going to take us a hell of a lot longer than we assumed."_

_ "Hey," Joker said genially. "I've got nowhere else to be right now."_

_ "I'll hold you to that. Shepard out." _

"It's just," Joker said, never once tearing his gaze from the glowing display. "Shit. Every time we're near this place, something goes spectacularly wrong."

EDI sat, folding herself nearly in the other chair. "Go on."

"Well, first time we got a call out here, Shepard found Garrus." He swallowed and added, "I saw it when they carried him in. I'll never understand how the hell he still had his head attached."

"Turian physiological structure is particularly well-equipped for –"

"Yeah, yeah," he said gently, and threw her a lopsided smile. "I know. They're very tough, and I've seen the armour he wears on top of it."

"What else?"

"You mean apart from the Omega-4 relay hovering right next door, and all the nasty things on the other side that ripped big holes in my ship?" he said, before he amended, "In the ship."

EDI's expression shifted into something suspiciously like a smile. "I understand," she said. "Go and find yourself some more coffee. I am perfectly capable of taking over for a few minutes."

"False modesty right there," he muttered. "And anyway, aren't you supposed to tell me to lay off the caffeine?"

"As if you will sleep or rest while they are down there," she said, her gaze – deliberately, he suspected – flitting back to the console.

He took himself down the walkway, too aware of the twinge in his back, just below his ribs. In the CIC he nodded to Traynor before ambling past the last of the workstations. He loitered for a handful of minutes in the mess hall, listening to Tali and Adams before they asked him for an update on Omega.

After he was sitting in the cockpit again, his hands wrapped around a steaming mug, he said, "Alright. That was a good idea."

"Thank you," EDI said wryly. "I have them occasionally."

"You've got to stop developing that sense of humour. It's getting worse."

A slow hour crawled past, and another, the console screens staying frustratingly unchanged.

"Jeff."

He blinked. "Uh. Yeah?"

"I can hear you thinking from here."

"Now you're scaring me," he said drily. He leaned back in the chair, absently rubbing at the back of his neck.

When the comm station buzzed, he reached for it. "_Normandy_."

"Still alive," Shepard said in response, her voice burred flat with fatigue.

"Good to know. Need a pick-up?"

"No, we'll come to you. Inbound shuttle, ETA fifty minutes."

"Okay." He hesitated before saying, "How'd it go?"

"Technically, on the ground? Fine," she said.

"But?"

"But Cerberus are way ahead of us."

* * *

><p>Brisk steps took Shepard into the briefing room, the reek of smoke still clinging to her armour. Scorched patches showed through on the back of both her gloves, and the twinge in her leg sharply informed her she'd taken one too many hard falls today. Behind her, Garrus and Vega were as battered, the grueling long hours on the station turning them all quiet.<p>

She discovered the others already there, Liara and Tali seated while Kaidan paced. EDI leaned over the display, her hands flickering over the keyboard, Traynor flanking her.

Shepard paused, sucked down a slow breath and said, "We've got a significant leap forward on just what the hell Cerberus are doing. That's the good news."

"And the bad?" Kaidan asked.

She leaned forward, wondering just how she was going to unpack the chaos and clamour of the day and form it into words. "Alright. Bear with me, because the short version isn't all that short."

Brusque she explained, how Cerberus had sent a transport ship loaded with adjutants – rippling, fast, their frames lit up by their punishingly strong biotics – onto the station. How Petrovsky had carved the station apart, districts locked down and always mechs on patrol, cordoning the streets and whittling down the territory until the residents had been pushed back onto gang turf.

"And the worst part," she said, pausing long enough to grin crookedly. "Is that these things weren't taken from the Reapers. They were made."

Silence answered, until Kaidan said, "They _made_ them."

"Using prior research on Reaper tech. But these things, however much they move like Reaper troops, however much they sound like them, they are Cerberus troops."

"Shit," Kaidan mumbled.

"These things are different," Vega said. "They move like fucking lightning."

"And they're infectious," Shepard said, hearing the bleak ring of her own voice. "I – shit – we all saw it."

"Reapers alter their captured or killed enemies," Liara said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, that's we thought too. But this is different. Calling them infectious is about the only way I can describe it." She paused, glancing across the table. "I'll forward our findings, along with footage that I want you all to go over."

"So we don't yet know if Omega was a test-case for these things," Kaidan said.

"Or if we're about to run into them on the regular," Shepard said.

"Wonderful."

"And Petrovsky?" Liara asked.

Shepard allowed herself a small smile. "On his way to spend the last of his glory years staring at the inside of a cell while Alliance intel pry out every secret he knows."

"Good," she said fiercely.

"Anyone sees something I've missed after I write this up, let me know. Anyone has any ideas, thoughts, anything, you know where to find me." Shepard straightened up, unlatching her hands from the table. "Okay. Dismissed."

* * *

><p>When the door closed behind Garrus, he fought the impulse to give in and lean against it. Instead, he made his way across the floor to the armour stand. When Shepard just sat, still fully armoured, he laughed and said, "And here I was trying not to mess up the furniture."<p>

Groaning, she staggered back upright. "Now I feel guilty."

"No, you don't." He fumbled the catches on his shoulder and swore. "That was, well. Hell of a day."

"Came through breathing."

"Yeah, yeah. We did."

Silently he peeled off the rest of his armour, scuffed and battered and a dent offensively close to being a puncture on one of his greaves. His thoughts kept spiraling back to it, to how _different_ it had looked, how abruptly he'd had to realize that he didn't know his way around Omega anymore.

Not since Petrovsky's troops had changed it, had installed those shimmering shield walls and barriered off bridges and sloping walkways. Not since he'd had to relearn how Omega fit together, ladders and warrens of tunnels and more than a few times he'd stepped out onto some filthy ledge, the drop beneath stomach-churning. Not since he'd stood wrapped in the darkness, Shepard's back against his, while the others hunted for the nearest generator.

Not since he'd heard it, that fucking _sound_ – and she'd heard it at almost the same time, her whole frame going rigid – and they'd blindly scanned the shadows for anything, _something_.

He remembered how it – the creature, the adjutant – had crashed hard into him, swinging him and toppling him in the same shockingly fast motion.

"Hey," Shepard said, and he felt the brush of her hand on his wrist. "Okay?"

"Yeah." He added the last piece of his armour to the stand and blurted, "No."

"I understand."

Her touch retreated – briefly, and only so she could finish pulling on a crumpled grey shirt – before she guided him across to the couch. After he sat, she curled herself between his legs, one of hers over his knee and her back to his chest. She settled his arms around her and they simply sat, wordless, until the tension eventually leeched from him.

He buried his mouth against the nape of her neck, tasting sweat and grime and her under it. The dry ends of her hair dragged against his tongue.

"It won't change," he said. "She'll just turn it into what it used to be and I can't work out why the hell that bothers me so much."

"It bothers you because you were there."

"Wasn't there for that long."

"Long enough."

The quiet stole back in, easier this time. Garrus let his thoughts go vague, aware only of the way she was tangling her hands around his, her fingers wiry and strong.

"You know," he said absently. "For a while there I thought you were going to let Aria tear Petrovsky apart."

"Hah. I should've. That or done it myself. But," she added, and shrugged. "It wouldn't have mattered how much intel we pulled from his consoles. There'll still be information he's only carrying around in his head."

"Yeah."

"You ever come across the Talons?"

"No. At least, I don't think I did. From what Kandros said, they'd've been small back then. Clawing out their own squares of territory, sure, but still small." He tipped them both sideways on the couch and felt Shepard's answering laugh, almost a sigh. "And, well. I was too busy pissing off as many other gangs as I could."

"I thought you didn't have many biotics," she said, and shook her head. "Shit. That sounded kind of insensitive. I mean, I thought there weren't all that many turian biotics."

"We don't have many biotics," Garrus answered drily. "And we don't like them, either. So we shove them into specialist units - cabals – and pretend that they don't scare us."

"Giving away cultural secrets now?"

"Very funny."

He gathered her tighter against him until he realized he was clinging to her. She said nothing – because she knew him, because she understood, and it made him ache – only clamping her hands over his instead.

"Mind if we stay here?"

She shifted, moving until her head was pillowed on the inside of his arm. "Best idea I've heard all day."

* * *

><p>Shepard glared down at the cards in her hand and said, "How the hell do you <em>do<em> this, Vega?"

Across the table, he grinned and shrugged. "Hey, I can't help it if I'm just so much better at this than you are. Commander."

"Nice." She flicked two of the cards down. "Just put me out of my misery fast, okay?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

After Shepard endured a third round of humiliation, the afternoon wore away slowly. She sat beside Garrus, listening to the easy lilt of the others around her. James, coaxing Kaidan back into the game for just one more round, while Tali quietly answered something Cortez asked about the Flotilla.

"Not a chance," Shepard said, when James tipped his chin towards the table. "The only way in hell I'm ever playing with you again is if we're all drinking."

"Sounds like a wager," James responded, grinning. "Might take a while to get rid of all the Reapers lurking around, so we should do that soon."

"Yes, because I am absolutely condoning everyone on duty getting drunk at the same time," she retorted mildly. "We do that, and you just know something will try and board the ship, eat the ship, or some combination of both."

"You're such a pessimist, Commander."

"Part of my job."

"Hey, Commander?" Cortez asked.

"Yeah?"

"The things on Omega," he said. "The adjutants?"

"You're in real danger of damaging the atmosphere," she said drily. "Go ahead."

"We know Cerberus still has – or had - interest in the Collector base you took out, right?"

"Yeah, I was thinking the same," she said. "Given Omega's proximity to the relay."

"We destroyed the base," Tali said.

"I'd say we destroyed most of it," Shepard said, nodding. "Doesn't mean they didn't sift through whatever was left. There's always something left over."

Garrus shifted beside her, leaning forward. "The way the Illusive Man reacted? They'd've gone over every inch of that place a hundred times in order to find something."

"I just cannot imagine _wanting_ to go back there," Tali said, softer.

"Me neither." Shepard added, halfway to smiling, "But then, Doctor Bryson had an honest-to-god bit of Sovereign in his lab."

Kaidan blinked over the fanned-out spread of his cards. "I get that he was studying Reapers, but why would you keep it that close?"

"It was shielded."

Kaidan shook his head. "No, that still wouldn't work for me. What did it look like?"

Shepard bit back a grin and said, "Shorter than expected."

"Really?" Kaidan groaned. "That was awful."

"I have my moments."

* * *

><p>Later, Shepard meandered back to their quarters, her thoughts a faint, pleasant mix of nothing more jarring than the last stories they'd exchanged, Vega attempting to one-up Garrus until both of them ended up laughing. Vaguely aware that it was too early to justify ducking into the rec room, she settled herself at the console and waited for the screen to brighten.<p>

The afternoon's messages were mostly predictable, a hefty Crucible update and then a report from Bailey detailing just how damnably clean Udina's personal terminals had been. Next she skimmed a brief message from Wrex – _Reaper scouts still sniffing around Tuchanka, but being booted back ten paces for every one they slunk forward_ – before moving on to Fifth Fleet movements from Hackett. Last, she opened a message from her mother and found herself smiling.

She scanned the message twice, the words there brisk and familiar, a couple of lines about the Crucible – _huge, just huge, and looking like it might just come together after all_ – and the rest about her, about Shepard, about how she was fine, better than fine, wasn't she, because she had to be. How she was missed, that sentence short and almost brusque, but Shepard understood, because how many times could you type out the same words, all of them echoes of each other, trying to make sense of it in words.

She kept her reply short – _yes, she was still breathing, yes, the news from Rannoch was mostly true, depending, yes, it was always good to hear from her, anything _– and stared at the words. For a moment she hesitated, figured she was being absurd, and added a last pair of lines.

_I know it's too soon to talk about catching up properly, but how about we work out some vidcomm time? Comms are shaky out here, but it'd be good to actually see you. _

Before she could reconsider, she sent the message, wondering why she'd had to wrestle with it at all.

Because she'd dropped out of contact for two years, she thought. Because she'd let herself get away with a handful of short messages here and there. Because the days were running too fast and too vicious.

She leaned back, propping her boots up beside the console.

The comm station buzzed, Liara's voice following. "Shepard? Are you busy?"

"No," she answered automatically. "Come up if you want."

She'd finished scrolling through the last of the day's incoming messages by the time Liara stepped inside. She looked up, saw Liara's rigid expression, and said, "What's wrong?"

Liara paused. "I've received a message from Councilor Tevos."

Shepard straightened up. "Go on."

"She's asking that we go to Thessia."

She listened, aware of how Liara was pacing, her hands twisting against each other. Thessia, and to a temple, she understood, and to meet with scientists. How there might – _should, would_ – be something lingering there, something with tenuous links to the Prothean data, to the Crucible.

"This is urgent?"

Liara stopped. "Very."

"Okay." Her fingers found the comm button again. "Joker, you awake?"

"Always," he answered.

"Set me a course for Thessia."

"Thessia," he echoed. "Can do, Commander. Details?"

"Details to come," she told him mildly.

"Understood."

"Thank you," Liara said. She sat, folding herself into the chair, her hands flat over her knees. "There are reports of Reaper troops already on the ground."

"Then we'll push through them." Shepard swung her feet down and onto the floor. "This temple."

"Raised for the worship the goddess Athame."

"It's gotten you rattled," she said.

"Yes." Liara leaned forward, her forehead furrowed. "And no, not just because of how abruptly they are saying they can help with the Crucible."

"Yeah, that part jumped out at me as well."

Liara's gaze skipped past Shepard to the wall and the floor and back again. "The temple itself is, well, rather oddly inconspicuous."

"How do you mean?"

"The Athame doctrine is not one followed by many now. And," Liara said, as if she was steeling herself. "The temple has classified government funding."

"They've got something there."

"Something that they have _always_ had there," Liara said, her voice softer. "Shepard. I don't know what this means."

Shepard leaned forward. "Means we figure it out."

"Yes." Something in Liara's eyes sharpened. "I'll go over anything and everything I have on the temple, and why it might be considered important or perhaps more crucially, unimportant."

"Yeah. I'll lean on the Council, see if they want to be a little more open before we get there."

Liara smiled. "When have they ever wanted that?"

"Hah." Shepard grinned and added, "I'm still willing to be surprised."


	54. Ruins

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Bioware owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Fifty-Four - Ruins**_

Luck, Shepard thought, had clearly taken a single look at the city and run for the fucking hills. She was crouched behind the broken edge of a low wall, the air hazy around her, and the corners of her mouth salty with sweat. She froze, aware of the marrow-deep rumbling of the Reaper as it moved, swaying its huge, clawed bulk through the remains of the city.

Beside her, James was rigid, his breathing uneven and rough. "Now?"

"Not yet," she whispered back. "Let the bastard go. Not our priority right now."

"Shit. Yeah. I hear you."

Somewhere overhead, the Reaper moved, the squeal of metal on metal following as it swayed its way through the empty shells of what had been tall, tapering buildings. The low whine of its main weapon sliced the air apart, the red beam slashing across the ground and into a toppled shuttle. The impetus flung the shuttle hard enough that Shepard gritted her teeth.

Forty minutes, she thought grimly. Forty minutes on the ground and so quickly – far too quickly – they'd found themselves close to overwhelmed. The descent had been choppy, Cortez yanking the shuttle past the ferocious scarlet glare of Reaper weapons. The landing had been worse, rocky enough to stagger her before they'd touched the ground, the first plaza they'd crossed too open and seething with ground troops.

On her other side, Garrus was as tense, one arm curled around his rifle and his gaze on the uneven terrain ahead. Sloping stone steps gave way to another avenue, thick with debris and smoke scorched into the ground.

The sky buzzed bright with the Reaper's main weapon, the beam biting into the curve of an archway. Stone buckled and fell and briefly Shepard snapped her eyes shut. She lasted out another slow minute, and another and another until the shining bulk of the Reaper was ahead of them, shadowed by high towers and still moving.

Two quick, speculative steps took her away from the wall. Silently, she motioned the others after her. Fast as she dared – the gloom was thick here, swimming with dust – she crossed to the far side. Vaulting up and over the grey ledge of stone there, she was met by the reek of smoke. Brusquely she scanned the avenue, noting the curve of a roof, somehow still standing. Beyond, she saw crumbled stone and the slanted edges of collapsed metal spars, the grey bones of whatever building had been there.

A whole city, she thought, and cities ringing it, and the whole fucking planet wreathed in flame. The atmosphere blurring with the heat as the _Normandy_ had closed in, thin skeins of cloud peeling apart and showing bright circles of fire far below.

_"Commander, you're going to want to see this."_

_ She crossed the last stretch of the walkway, stepping into the cockpit and into the vivid glow of the displays. She noticed Joker's expression first, flat and pale beneath his cap. She followed his gaze to the visual feed and swallowed. "Shit."_

_ "Well, when I said _want_."_

_ "You meant had to," she muttered, her eyes still on the jolting images there, toppled spires and pulsing ribbons of smoke and the shining shapes of Reapers. "It's okay." _

_ "Yeah," he said quietly. "Going to be rough, even if I can find you a clean path down."_

_ "We'll make it work."_

Tortuous minutes took them further across the wide spread of a plaza, slowed when ground troops broke through the ruins of an archway. The shuddering thud of a grenade bought her space, and her follow-up volley knocked another one of the lumbering bastards off its feet. The livid flare of Liara's biotics followed, rippling into the gangling creature – it had been an asari, once, its limbs all dragging now – and sending it sprawling. Another wave chased the first, and Shepard snapped for the others to hold their ground, to push back.

"More coming in left," Garrus said tersely. "Coming in fast."

She was half-crouched behind the slope of a wall. She waited a heartbeat longer until another whiplash of biotic energy surged through the archway. Twisting upright, she saw them, feet pounding hard and furious through uneven stone. Closing fast and relentless and abruptly Shepard realized they were inches from being boxed in.

"Garrus, with me." As briskly, she added, "Liara?"

"Here, Shepard."

A flurry of bullets bit into the wall beside her, and she jolted back onto her heels. "Head on to the temple. Everyone else, you're with her. We'll block them and catch up."

"Of course."

On her other side, Garrus settled his rifle into his shoulder. "What did I do to deserve the _you're going to get the crap beaten out of you_ assignment?"

"You wouldn't have it any other way."

"Well. Maybe not."

She inched along the wall until she had her shoulders were flat against the wall, a gap a foot away letting in swirling dust motes and sunlight. "Okay," she said, once she'd heard the others hurrying away ahead. "I'm on crowd control. You're mopping up."

He barked out a laugh. "One way of putting it."

The first grenade she tossed scattered the first surge of them, the impact close enough to rattle her. The second sent another four of them staggering, their frames going loose and boneless and the others behind still ploughing onwards, implacable. As rapidly, Garrus picked off the three the grenade hadn't toppled. Another shot tore the feet out from under the next creature that clawed itself too close to the wall.

The air above the wall flashed livid. Squinting, Shepard saw an asari – changed, altered – floating, her feet sliding. The asari's arms flung wide, and the surge of energy washed over the wall. Shepard's shields sputtered out and she swore, dropping flat.

"Stay down," Garrus growled.

One shot disrupted the asari's balance, pushing her sideways. When she coiled herself upright again, clenched hands flaring, his next shot shattered her wrists. The asari shrieked, her jaw dropping open. The third shot split her head in half, her biotics crackling into silence.

"They can _fly_," Shepard muttered, almost to herself. She hauled herself back up to her feet. "Not fair."

"It's more being cushioned by their biotics. I think."

"Charming. Clear?"

He nodded. "For now."

"I hear that."

She jerked her chin at him before she moved, stalking across the plaza. Garrus mirrored her, both of them moving fast and close to silent, skirting the edges of collapsed pillars and ducking past crumpled shuttles. Twice they stopped, desperately listening to the clamour of footfalls, to the rattle of gunfire.

Kneeling, Shepard fumbled for her comm and said, "Liara?"

"Here, Shepard."

"Tell me what you see."

"We have the temple in our sights. I'd hazard fifteen minutes will get us in."

"Cover? Shelter?"

"Workable. We'll stay and wait for you."

She hesitated, her thoughts half on the din of combat she could still hear, the bursting thump of biotic energy slamming hard into metal. "If you can, get back in contact with Outpost Tykis. If they're still there, they've got company coming."

"Right away."

She motioned Garrus on beside her, pushing on until they'd cleared the slope of another avenue and the jagged lift of stairs, the edges brittle and saw-shaped. Another five minutes took them higher, past shining pools and up onto a wide plaza. When she heard Liara's voice again, hushed through her comm, she responded that yes, it was them, and they hadn't brought friends.

Through a door – sparking and jolting open too slowly – they discovered the others, holed up in what might have been an apartment, or an office, or god knew what else, reeking of metal and smoke. On one side, sunlight spilled in through the gaps punched in the ceiling.

"Clear," Shepard said, in answer to the way Kaidan glanced up. "For now. What's the terrain ahead look like?"

"Suspiciously empty," Liara replied. Her eyes were wide, too wide, bright and brittle.

Painfully Shepard understood, the awful, necessary way you had to shove it back, all of it, because it wouldn't - _couldn't_ - make sense right now, not when you were picking your way through the broken pieces of your own past, your own place.

"You said the government sent scientists," Kaidan said. "Would they have had military escorts?"

"Probably. No one's talking out there, though."

"Given what we just slogged through? I'd be keeping quiet," James muttered.

"Okay." Shepard settled her rifle against her shoulder. "Eyes on the sky and let's see what we can find out there."

* * *

><p>The temple was silent, <em>still<em>, the quiet wrapping around the high pillars and across the white floor. A blade-edged kind of silence, Garrus thought, tremulous and impatient somehow.

"So." Kneeling, Vega eyed the slumped shapes of the scientists again. "Guess this place is suddenly popular."

"Makes you wonder, doesn't it," Shepard muttered.

"Cerberus," Liara said.

Shepard lowered her rifle. "Unless we've run into a third, completely unrelated party who are interested in what we're doing."

"Funny, Commander," Vega said.

She crossed the floor between the pillars again, each step snapped-out, her whole frame coiled. Watching, Garrus could see the locked tension in her, in the way she was scanning the statue – huge, blank-faced, all pale slopes of stone – again and again as if she could see something under it, inside it.

Flatly, she said, "There's a Prothean beacon here. In the statue."

"No, there couldn't be," Liara responded. "I mean – I've never heard of –"

"You've never been told." She slung her rifle back into the weapon harness. Briskly, she hauled herself up and closer to the statue, one hand brushing along the stone folds. Her hand flattened against it, and Garrus saw how her shoulders dipped. "It's here. We need to get into it."

Briefly, absurdly, Garrus wanted to ask if she was sure, if she wanted to let whatever was buried in the statue into her head. He'd been on Feros and on Ilos and he'd heard about Eden Prime and even _now_ the nerves were jangling under his skin at the thought of it, something else the Protheans had left behind, traces of lives bundled under stone and kept hidden.

_The briefing room was splotched with bright lights this early. Garrus blinked, briefly regretted how long he'd stayed up going over C-Sec fill-in reports, and squared his shoulders. "Sorry to bother you this early, Commander."_

_ She was standing over the table, her fatigues crisp and her stance as deceptively easy. Hiding the tiredness, he thought, hiding the way everything had suddenly moved so fast. The last fifteen hours had hurtled past, Shepard's official request dropping onto Pallin's desk and Garrus'd stood there like a damn kid trying not to betray just how frantic he was to get moving. _

_ To get the pieces together. _

_ To get Saren's trail laid out in front of them. _

_ Shepard straightened up, her expression relaxing. "No problem, Vakarian. What can I do for you?"  
><em>

_It was odd, he thought, these first few days on the _Normandy_. First few days working out where everything was, working out the names of the crew, the humans, led by a Spectre. _

_ "Something you mentioned, last briefing, Commander." He paused. "This beacon. Prothean beacon, right?" _

_ "Right," she said, and smiled. "Not my best decision, that one." _

_ "I was wondering if we could talk about it. If I could ask about it."_

_ She nodded briskly. "Go ahead."_

_ "On Eden Prime," he said, abruptly aware that she already damn well knew everything he was saying, that he was struggling to fill in the silence. _

_ "It sounds crazy," she said mildly. _

_ "Yeah. Yeah, it does."_

_ "You read the report?"_

_ "Yeah, Commander. I did."_

_ "Sounds worse out loud." She leaned against the table, her eyebrows knotting. "We'd found the beacon, but we didn't really know what it was going to do. What it even was." _

_ Garrus waited, aware of the way she was weighing her words. _

_ "It'd been moved," Shepard said. "We secured the area around it. Thought the mission was done. KIA status to log and we needed to get back on board."_

_ Not censuring, he nodded. _

_ "It was," she said, and paused. "Alenko got close to it and it – well, it glowed. I pushed him out of the way and it pulled me off my feet."_

_ "It," Garrus echoed. _

_ "Yeah. I don't remember that part, not really. But yes. It pulled me off my feet and it got in my head and I saw things."_

_ She was looking at him, unwavering and challenging as if she was expecting him to laugh or to call bullshit or to shrug. _

_ "Like what?"_

_ "Flames," she said flatly. "Cities on fire. Ruins."_

_ "You believe it?" Garrus asked. _

_ "I believe that what I saw came from the beacon," she said, her gaze meeting his, implacable. "What I'm trying not to do is pick it apart so much that I get lost in it. I'm not assuming I'm seeing _a_ city, one with a name. If that makes sense."_

_ "Yeah." _

_ "Honestly, Vakarian, I don't know what I saw. When I saw." She shrugged. "But yes, I believe it. Guess I have to." Her grin came and went. "Otherwise it makes me really crazy." _

_ "I don't know," he said. "It might make you the person in the worst place at the worst time."_

_ Shepard laughed, short and sharp and almost as if she hadn't meant to, her eyes lightening. "I think you might be right." _

The statue came apart, livid lines of light bursting through the stone. Garrus edged closer, wondering just how long this thing – the beacon itself, spear-straight and shining – had been here, masked. How much the asari government had known. How much, he thought sourly, they had pretended _not_ to know.

He saw the shape of the VI next, green and shimmering. The VI - or the piece of Prothean memory or whatever it was – hovered, seeming to take in the shape of the temple, the dust between the pillars, the fierce wash of the sky through the far archway. It spoke, its voice crisp and unperturbed.

"Reaper presence detected."

"No shit," Vega muttered.

The VI shifted. "This cycle has reached its extinction terminus."

"Wait," Shepard snapped. "Just _wait_."

The VI turned.

"Wait," she said again. "I have questions, and you are going to give me some answers."

* * *

><p>Shepard leaned heavily against the pillar. Her thoughts were upended, furious, as much of a mess as the rest of her, her armour all battered and blood slicking one side of her mouth. They'd been caught out, <em>again<em>, boxed in and trapped and able to do _nothing_ while Cerberus – while Kai Leng – had wandered off with the VI. Nothing but fire back and when they'd gained ground he'd called in gunships, and the rattling clamour had sent them scattering.

She'd pushed too fast and too damn reckless, and painfully she knew it.

"Not hearing anything from Cortez," Kaidan said, his voice rough.

"Okay." Mechanically she straightened up. "Then we get out of here and get to higher ground."

"Commander?"

"We need to move," she said flatly. "Anything comes crawling up here and we're stuck."

At the archway, the ground was hot underfoot, the air shimmering. Her boots skidded against loose stone, and Garrus steadied her wordlessly. Briefly she caught the back of his arm, squeezing as if he'd be able to feel it properly through his armour.

Cautiously, they picked their way around the side of the temple. The sky was heavy with cloud, shadows sliding across the crumbled remains of high towers. Every breath she gulped in was acrid and thick with dust.

"…Commander? Shepard, you reading this?"

She slapped her comm on and said, "Here, Cortez. Tell me you're close."

"Give me five minutes."

"Works for me."

The last stretch of the path stayed mercifully empty. The others stayed as silent as she was, that heavy silence that she knew meant you couldn't frame it in words, not yet. Not when it was still raw, because then you'd be admitting flat-out it was failure, shored up on both sides by bad timing.

When the shuttle set down, she motioned the others on first. She hauled herself inside, the hatch whirring shut on her heels.

"Shepard," Liara said, her gaze somewhere on her own boots. "The temple –"

Abruptly, terribly, Shepard wished Liara'd stayed quiet, wished she'd said nothing.

"Yeah," she said. "What about it?"

"How did they," Liara said.

"They knew about it."

Sharper, Liara said, "You can't know that."

"Your Councilor _knew_ about this and they've been fucking sitting on it. We've been running our asses into the ground, calling on everyone and anyone and they've been nodding along with us. Nodding while they do nothing."

"That's not –"

"You were there with me when we spoke to Tevos," she said, cutting across her. "Remember what she said?"

_"This may be the key."_

_ "To what, exactly, Councilor?"_

_ Tevos' head lifted, her gaze sharpening. "To all of this."_

"Of course I do," Liara said. She shook her head. "I don't know what to say."

"Neither do I."

"That it was Kai Leng sent there – "

"Yes, I was there as well," she grated out. The words spilled out, viciously fast. "I get it. Illusive Man's got it in for us. For me. You said you were tracking Leng. Or trying to."

"Shepard, I _was_."

"Then fucking well find him this time." Shepard blinked, forcing back the welling anger. She needed to rein herself in, she knew, wrestle herself steady because it had nothing to do with Liara, and everything to do with the way Cerberus had kicked her feet out from under her.

Her comm crackled, and Joker said, "Hey, Commander. Got you inbound. How'd it go?"

"Not well. What's up?"

"I've got Admiral Anderson on vidcomm. Says he'd like a word. Nothing urgent."

She swallowed back the sour urge to laugh. "Let him know I'm on my way. And tell him he either has great timing or the worst timing."

* * *

><p>The vidcomm field rippled, shook and finally steadied. Waiting, hands clenched, Shepard watched until she could make out Anderson's frame, haggard and tired even with the blurred edges of the distance.<p>

"Glad you caught me," she said. "Should I ask where you are?"

"Long story," he answered. "Rough day."

"Here as well."

"Joker tells me you were on Thessia?"

She hesitated, briefly hating it, the silence, the way her tongue felt. He waited, and she should've guessed he would, waited for her to put it into words. How it'd started in the temple, with the beacon flaring and cracking the statue apart. With the VI and how its words had jarred bone-deep. How the gunships had filled the archway and she'd failed. How she'd made herself stop long enough to listen to the Illusive Man and wished she'd taken the time to tear Leng and his remote comm devices apart instead.

"Should've heard some of the bullshit I spouted today. Get us to this temple, and we'll win this war. Get us there, and I can hand you a solution on a fucking platter."

"You done?" Anderson asked.

She froze. "Yeah."

"You know how many times I got my ass handed to me over the years?"

"All due respect, sir, the galaxy wasn't being torn apart by Reapers."

As sharp he said, "You think I don't know the scales and score right now, Shepard? I'm sitting in what used to be a city. I don't stop for more than twenty hours at a time. I'm shoving guns into the hands of very young men and women who look like kids down here."

"And I'm up here with fucking Reapers on my ass and everyone on this ship looking at me like I have some kind of plan," she snapped.

"Then get a plan. Figure it. Someone has to."

Abruptly she laughed, the sound thin and tired. "The unexpected pep talks are always the best, sir."

"Sir?" he echoed, and the jolting lines of the vidcomm display did not quite hide the way his eyebrows arched.

"Yeah, well. Habit."

"How's Vakarian?"

"Garrus? He's fine. Good. Why're you asking?"

"Just the way he had to leave you on Earth," Anderson said, smiling.

"You sentimental bastard," Shepard said mildly.

"I'm not sentimental. You're transparent."

"You give me a speech about hanging to what you need and I'll cut this transmission off," she said, and almost smiled.

"Not fooling me, Shepard. I know you too well. What's your next step?"

"Briefing room," she said, and nodded. "Start by picking up the pieces."

"All you can do."

"Yeah."

"Shepard?"

"Still here," she said.

"Get through this," Anderson said, his tone roughening. "You need to."

"I hear you."

She keyed the vidcomm console off before he did, her gaze on the floor. She was still clad in most of her armour, her helmet and gloves abandoned by the console. Almost absently, she scooped them into her arms.

She discovered the others already in the briefing room, the wall of the silence there assailing her. Past Liara she noticed Traynor, and EDI, her frame silvery and still, waiting. She could still taste Thessia, dust and stone and the sharp tang of scorched metal. After she'd laid her helmet and gloves on the table, she flattened her hands on it and wondered just how the hell to start.

"Commander," Kaidan said. "You get through to Anderson?"

"I did. He's fine." She summoned a smile. "He suggests we get through this."

"That simply," Garrus said, and she heard the half-hidden, burred amusement in his tone.

"We'll work on that part." She hesitated. "I'd say first option is to get after the VI."

"I agree," Liara said. She was hovering, her face stiff and uncertain and Shepard knew she was burying Thessia, burying the thought of it.

"Problem is our friend Leng's disappearing act," James remarked.

"We'll get him," Shepard said, forcing her voice firmer. "No one vanishes. Not forever." She pushed away from the table. "Today was a mistake. My mistake. I pushed us too hard and too fast at the temple. Take some time to work through it. Any thoughts, any ideas, anything anyone thinks of, you know where to find me. Dismissed."

The words rang out hollow, and briefly, jarringly, she wondered if she'd made the right choice. If instead she should've spun them something about how it was a setback, that was all, a step backwards that they would remedy, but they had been on the ground with her and they had seen it.

Long moments later she dragged her head up in time to see Garrus, still there, hands flat on the other side of the table.

"Hey," she said uselessly. "Shouldn't you be sleeping? Or showering? Or anything else than hanging around to see if I have anything more to say?"

"Shepard."

She shrugged. "Sorry."

He crossed the floor until he was beside her, hesitating for half a heartbeat, before he curled his hand over the back of her wrist. "So. What was that today?"

"That was me trying to kill that slippery bastard. And failing. And, on top of that, losing Thessia."

"And less dramatically?"

"I miscalculated."

"Everyone miscalculates," he said evenly.

"I took Liara down there, and she watched her home come apart around her."

"And so did you, on Earth."

"Earth's never really been my home," she said, more waspishly than she'd meant to.

"Not the point and you know it." He turned her hand over so her fingers were laced between his, hers shorter and thinner.

"What exactly do you want me to say right now?"

"Just," he said, and paused. His head tipped to one side slightly, blue eyes raking over her. "You've been lost inside your own thoughts since we left that damn temple."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"_That_," he snapped. "That's not you. That's you being angry and lashing out because today didn't go so well."

"Noticed, did you?"

"Shepard."

"Garrus, the whole fucking galaxy isn't going so well right now."

"You're not the only one hurting," Garrus growled, the anger finally breaking through the modulated burr of his voice. "You've never been the only one hurting. Wake yourself up."

"So what do I say?" she retorted, as harsh. "We've been losing this whole time, and I just didn't say it that way?"

"Kicking back isn't losing. One failure isn't losing."

"No." She exhaled, the breath rattling from her lungs. "No. Shit. I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"You always say that," she said, and saw the angles around his eyes ease slightly.

"Not always," he protested. "You okay?"

The silence stretched before Shepard said, "No. Not really."

He didn't ask anything else, didn't push. Instead, he tightened his hand around hers, the anchoring pressure there fierce and wanted.

* * *

><p>The end of the redeye watch turned the ship quiet. As silently, Shepard quartered the CIC, scanning the last of the workstations still humming. Briefly she checked in with Joker before heading down to engineering, her footsteps measured. She found the corridors there as deserted, Adams still on watch near the drive core. He nodded to her, and mercifully didn't speak.<p>

She had spent too long waiting for Traynor to wrangle the comms back into line before she'd been able to get through to Tevos. To explain, to hear it again in her own voice, to hear how the Councilor had nodded, blankly.

_"You must forgive me, Commander. There are preparations that I need to – you understand, I'm sure."_

The armory and the shuttle bay were next, the familiar pathways of her ship, her feet knowing each pace and each inch, where she needed to walk softer and where the lights were too low, even this late. Which doors whirred open smoothly and which doors – the third on the way back up – jolted a little. Which half of the crew quarters never seemed to settle down, even this late, while the other always seemed hushed. Eventually she crossed back through the mess hall, untenanted. With a rush of startling relief, she found the gun battery as empty.

After she'd stepped into the elevator, she took herself back into their quarters, pausing long enough to notice that Garrus had left the light near the shower on. She bit back a grin before ducking inside.

After she'd scrubbed the sweat and the grime away, she turned her attention to her hair, still stiff with blood. The short dark strands seemed to take longer, knots catching against her fingers. Eventually, after she'd dunked more shampoo over her head and rubbed it through, the water ran clear, the scalding heat banishing the roil of her thoughts.

Loosely clad in a towel afterwards, she padded back out. She discovered Garrus occupying half of her side in bed and smiled. Easing the sheets up, she slid in, listening to how his breathing stayed even.

"Feel better?"

Shepard laughed. "Thought you were dreaming."

"I'm sharp and aware at all times. You should know that."

"Sure you are."

He hooked an arm around her. "Okay. I was worried I'd have to come argue with you about pacing around for the next six hours."

"And I was worried I'd find you in the gun battery just knowing you have to go over that last algorithm again."

Garrus laughed, and she felt the slight brush of his teeth at the back of her neck. "Makes us quite a pair."

"Yeah," she said, the word turning into a sigh. "Hell of a day."

"Yeah."

"Glad you were there with me."

"Yeah, well. No one else would've knocked those bastards on the ground back quite so fast," he said genially.

"That, too," she told him drily. "I talked to Tevos."

"How'd she take it?"

"Not well."

"Understandable," he said, softer.

She shifted until her back was against the hard lines of his chest. "Yeah."

"Shepard."

"It's okay," she said, and half-believed her own voice, rough with exhaustion. "Hey, Garrus?"

"Yeah?"

"Stay?"

"Hey." Very gently, he mouthed at the side of her face. "Of course."

"You always know what to say."

"No, I just know you."

Aching, she said, "Yeah. You do."


	55. Connections

_As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Reviews are always welcome.  
><em>

_**Chapter Fifty-Five: Connections**_

_The walkway tilted under Joker's feet, his boots sliding uselessly. Firmly, Shepard caught him again, steadying him. When he bit back a cry – her gloves were latched over his shoulder, too tight, clamping and painful – she eased her grip and slowed down. Part of him wanted to shout at her to get herself moving and _fast_ and get herself off the ship before it crumbled. The rest of him knew that she was stubborn enough to knock him cold and drag him out if she had to. _

_The ship canted again, tipping, and he guessed it was the nosecone dropping. The _Normandy_ – and fuck it but it was his ship and her ship and _theirs_ – was collapsing, and it seemed that he could hear every inch giving way. _

_Shepard braced her free hand against the wall and for an awful, wrenching moment, they were both trapped, clinging to each other. _

"_Lean into me," she snapped. "Hard as you need. We need to move."_

_Stupidly – the ship was falling apart around them, for God's sake – he wanted to say that he'd manage it, that he was fine. That he should've stayed in the cockpit and wrestled with the ship until he had her settled. That he should've and could've cajoled and coaxed and fucking well fought until he had her coasting. _

_That he should've _stayed_. _

_Somehow he staggered down the next set of steps, his heels jarring. Shepard jostled him on faster, shoving him through the doorway. Ahead he could hear footsteps, thudding and uneven. The air was thicker here, dense with smoke and shockingly hot. Too close, the wall seemed to ripple, buckling, shimmering with the heat. Shepard caught his arm. He could feel the rigid desperation in her, in the way her hand was locked. _

"_Come on," she said. "Nearly there."_

He woke, jarring one hand against the wall. He waited, heart hammering, while the familiar grey contours of his quarters swam into focus. Carefully, Joker sat up, teeth gritted.

How many times, he wondered, was his own damn mind going to haul him back to the same memory? The same dream, different only in where it started or where it finished, different only in where it left him after he woke.

Another long moment dragged until he lowered his feet onto the floor. The low light he'd left on at the desk spilled over two empty mugs, his console screen, and a datapad Kaidan'd sent up earlier. By the time he'd crossed to the sink and glared at himself in the mirror, some of the tension had seeped out of his neck. The light tap at the door made him flinch. Silently cursing himself for being an idiot – _jumping at shadows, still tasting sweat on his lips_ – he mumbled, "What?"

"Jeff? Are you alright?"

He groaned. "I'm fine, EDI."

"Do you want to talk?"

He hesitated. No, he thought, he didn't want to. He wanted to bury it back with the other dreams, the other memories.

"Sure," he said, and was fairly certain he hadn't even convinced _himself_ with the way his voice had come out, all rough still. "Give me a minute."

"Of course."

He fumbled the overhead lights on first. After he yanked the rumpled sheets mostly straight he found the shirt he must've dropped yesterday, halfway under the bed. He gave it a quick shake, shrugged, and heaved it on. Almost without thinking, he scooped up his cap on the way to the door, tugged it on, and hit the keypad.

When EDI stepped inside, he could've sworn she was grinning at him. Or _almost_ grinning, in that slight way that seemed to change the cast of her face.

"What?" he asked lightly. "I can be strange and quite deliberately remember my cap and forget my boots at the same time."

"Deliberately," she echoed.

"Naturally." Abruptly he was aware of how small his quarters seemed. The desk was shoved too close to the bed and most of the floor was lost under stacks of reports he'd left scattered or last week's fatigues that he hadn't quite gotten around to. "You do realize it's the middle of the night, yeah?"

"And by your own admission you do not sleep much."

"Now you're making fun of me," he said genially.

He motioned her across the floor, briefly considered sweeping the stack of datapads and manuals off the chair, changed his mind, and just sat on the end of the bed instead.

"It's weird," he said, without thinking about it.

"What is?"

"Well, mostly we do all our talking in the cockpit."

"Or the rest of the CIC. Or the mess hall. Or the corridors."

"There you go again with that sense of humour thing."

"I suspect you like it." She sat beside him, the silver lines of her frame folding soundlessly.

"You might be right." The floor was cold, he thought, and wondered why the hell he was even noticing. Almost without thinking, he said, "You reckon we keep dreaming things because we feel bad, or because we can't let go?" He blinked. "And, uh, I just realized I have no idea if you even dream."

"Not as you do, I imagine," EDI said, slightly teasingly. "I have thoughts, and sometimes those thoughts linger. But then, I do not exactly _sleep_ the way you do, either."

"You're so weird," Joker said, and nudged her arm gently.

"That was a very bad joke."

"It's late. My good material's on reserve for daytime hours."

"What was it?"

Briefly he considered telling her something irreverent about the sheer terror involved in early morning rosters at flight school, changed his mind, and said, "The _Normandy_ falling apart."

For long, thoughtful moments EDI stayed silent. Eventually she said, "Jeff, the attack on Thessia likely brought up these thoughts. It has nothing to do with guilt, and everything to do with the sheer amount of destruction we see the Reapers engage in."

"Yeah. I know."

"So, to answer you, I assume it is because you cannot let it go," she said, slightly arch.

"I know that too," he said wearily. "Stupid. Liara was down there and it was – it is - her home, and she had to _see_ it happening, and I'm sitting here all shaken because of a dream."

"I do not think such things count as a competition of any kind," EDI said drily.

Despite himself, Joker laughed. "Good point."

"Though humans continue to surprise me, so who knows?"

"Very funny." He touched the side of her arm. "Thanks. For being here."

"You are welcome."

EDI turned, looking at him searchingly. Almost hesitant – how, he thought, could _she_ be hesitant - she tipped his cap back off his head. Abruptly tense, he sat very still while she explored the rumpled mess of his hair, and then the angles of his jaw, blurred beneath thick stubble.

"If you're, ah," Joker said, and silently cursed the way his voice abandoned him. "If that's your way of telling me I need to shave more, then –"

"No," she said, her lips curling into a smile. "Not at all."

"Oh."

He wondered if she could feel the way his pulse was galloping and silently concluded that of course she could. The pads of her fingers were smooth, not skin, not really – right now he couldn't for the life of him dredge up what it _was_ she was covered in, but he knew she'd told him, at least twice – but she was achingly gentle with him, tracing out the contours of his face as if she'd never seen him before.

Awkwardly, he leaned back into her shoulder and wondered if he was quietly going mad. Or if he always had been and no one'd bothered to let him know. As carefully, EDI curled one arm around his waist and stayed there, unmoving, while he became aware that she was _warm_.

"So," Joker said. "I don't have to be up and moving for a while. Unless the ship gets attacked, of course. And then I probably should."

"Jeff. It's fine."

"Right. So you'll stay? For a while?"

"I will stay. For a while."

* * *

><p>The last hours of the day cycle were quiet. On her way through the CIC, Shepard paused long enough to go over last night's incoming intel data with Traynor and was pleasantly surprised not to be handed a raging crisis.<p>

"And here, Commander," Traynor said, scrolling down the screen. "Fifth Fleet fuel and supply data. All holding."

"Good. Anything else?"

"Krogan troops on holding steady on turian colonies. For the most part, I understand that they're working with turian units and pushing Reaper ground forces back."

Shepard found herself smiling. "Long as they don't start fighting over just who pushed the Reapers back first, I'm happy. Thanks, Traynor."

"You're welcome, Commander."

She nodded, and a few indolent minutes took her around and into the elevator and through the last corridor until she was standing outside Liara's quarters. She paused, wondered if she should just wait, or come back later, shrugged and knocked anyway. "Liara, you in there?"

She heard footsteps, meticulous and graceful, before the door slid open, revealing Liara in loose fatigues. "Shepard? Did you need something?"

She hesitated again. "I was wondering if we could talk?"

Liara smiled, the motion of it reaching her eyes. "Of course. Come in."

Shepard stepped inside, automatically noting the gleaming consoles, and the way the main screen was livid with churning lines of data. Hands loose at her side, she said, "I should get this out of the way first. I need to apologise to you about how I treated you on Thessia."

Liara paused, one hand on the back of her chair. "Oh – no, not at all. It was – it was a rough day for all of us."

"Yes, it was, but it doesn't excuse the CO for lashing out. That's not my job. I'm meant to bottle it all up and shout when we get back on board."

Liara laughed, slightly breathless, as if she hadn't meant to. "I can't pretend any of what we found and did on Thessia was anything to be proud of. But however it – I mean, I understand."

Shepard nodded. "I appreciate that. But I was still out of line."

"And I've already heard you apologise," Liara said. "So sit down."

She complied, spinning out the spare chair and sinking onto it.

"I took some time to go over my mother's files," Liara said, her voice wavering slightly. "I honestly don't know if I found anything new, or if I imagined it somewhat."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, well. The absences in so much of her writing concerning the Temple of Athame."

"Yeah," Shepard said carefully. "But she'd likely not have left _'hey, by the way, look for another Prothean beacon here'_ messages all over her work."

"No, but it seemed almost a calculated absence." Liara sighed. "In some ways I suspect she was protecting me. But then – this is going to sound terrible."

"Go ahead."

"I feel as if she - well, when I told her I was interested in Prothean history. When I wanted nothing more than to specialize in Prothean ruins. She must have thought it absurdly hilarious."

"Perhaps," Shepard allowed, sharply aware of the heaviness in Liara's voice. "But you've said in the past that she always supported your work."

"Yes. I imagine I'm projecting how I feel about her now to how she behaved around me years ago." Liara's eyes flickered, softening. "Foolish."

"Not at all."

"Did I ever tell you that my mother once caught me digging for ruins? Outside, close to our apartment?"

Shepard spluttered into laughter. "No, you didn't, because I'd've definitely remembered. Dare I ask why you were digging?"

"To see if there was anything there," Liara said wryly. "I should add that I was a child at the time."

"I was about to ask."

"Of course you were," Liara retorted. She paused, shifting in her chair. "I remember you saying something about half a bottle of wine a few days ago. Would you like to share one with me?"

"Course," Shepard answered lightly. "Course, I'm also going to need to know just what you dug up that day."

Liara stood, but only after she had mustered up a glare. She swung one of her lockers open, leaning in. "Bits of glass, stone. A few fragments of metal that were probably only a few years old. Nothing exciting. Truth be told, I desperately wanted to find a whole other city under ours. Or at least part of one. I suppose at the time a small building would have sufficed."

Shepard straightened up, reaching for the glass Liara passed her. She held it out long enough for Liara to pour, the crisp scent of the wine filling her mouth. "Very nice," she said, after she'd sipped at the wine. "Perk of the job?"

"More like planning ahead."

"I should do that," Shepard said musingly. "Mainly because I think using official Alliance requisition orders to fill the drinks cabinet might be frowned upon."

Liara sat again, her hands curling around the stem of the glass. "You never know until you try."

"Hah." She raised the glass again, discovering that the wine was too treacherously easy to drink, flooding cold and slightly sweet across her tongue. "When I was a kid, I wanted to fly."

"Literally, or did you want to be a pilot?"

She smiled. "A bit of both, I think. My dad – this was years ago, back when he was still around – Dad sat me down and we went over all these flight manuals. He wasn't a pilot himself, but he'd just come back from a long haul ship-board. Course, much later, I worked out I was much better on the ground with a gun than in the air."

"But he listened," Liara said softly.

"Yeah. He did."

"After I failed to uncover a whole new civilization, my mother bought me a lot of history books. And she looked over them with me, when she had the time." Liara's smile shook slightly. "She used to wear yellow often. She was beautiful. The most beautiful woman in the world, I thought. And she threw it all away."

"She fought," Shepard said. "I know it doesn't help, but I remember that. She fought so hard against indoctrination."

"It helps." Liara blinked, her expression tightening. "What was your mother like?"

It was a distraction, which Shepard understood, but she knew it was also – _always_, with Liara, who saw through silences with deft ease – gently genuine. The fragile acknowledgement of overlapping experience, even if the edges were different, even if the years could be counted past faster or slower.

"Tough and sharp, but she was always fair." She winced and amended, "Still is, is what I should've said."

"Her name is Hannah, if I remember right?"

"Yeah. After I got through N7 training, I remember she came to meet me when I went home. Well, not home. Where she was living at the time."

"I understand."

"And we were meant to go out for dinner, celebrate, that kind of thing." Shepard grinned. "Instead, we just stayed in and drank way too much and talked about god knows what. Then she dragged me out for early lunch the next day, bitched about my hangover, and made far too many jokes about how if I'd gotten through the N7 program, this should be a breeze."

"She's still with the Alliance?"

Shepard reached for the bottle. "You know, I do know you're the Shadow Broker. There's no way you don't know the answer to that."

"Well, yes," Liara admitted, her eyes shining. "But it felt more polite to ask."

* * *

><p>Kaidan stared down at the reshuffled deck of cards and wondered just when he'd become so ignominiously wretched at playing. He'd spent the evening being roundly trounced by Vega and Cortez and had been just stubborn enough to keep playing even when the slightest hope of victory dwindled horribly.<p>

After they'd taken themselves back down to the armoury – and after Kaidan had firmly concluded that he was never, ever, playing with either of them again – he'd stayed in the observation room. Quieter than the mess hall, especially at this time of the evening, and he'd discovered that he enjoyed the huge wrap-around windows, black and glittering.

He stacked the cards again, placed them back in their holder on the side of the table, hesitated through another moment, and pulled up his omni-tool. Garrus would be either finishing up his shift or else already in the mess hall, he reckoned. Before he could change his mind, he tapped out a few lines, asking if the turian – if Garrus – had time to catch up. He'd already sent it when he realized it probably read more like an order than a casual message.

He was idly sifting through the cards when the door opened, letting Garrus in along with a surge of conversation from the corridor beyond.

"Hey," Garrus said, and nodded. "Just tidied up. What's up?"

"I was wondering, well. I know you and I haven't had much time to talk since, well, since –" Kaidan leaned back in the chair, teeth clenching when the words ran absurdly dry.

" – and I haven't known what to say either," Garrus said wryly. He sat, his rangy frame filling the chair.

Kaidan laughed, surprising himself. "Not just me?"

"Not just you." Garrus flattened his hands on the table. "I get that it's weird. But I guess I also want you to know that, well. I still – shit, you know – this was far less awkward when I was just having to _think_ it rather than say it."

"I know what you mean." Kaidan rubbed at the back of his neck. "I wanted to tell you that I'm not – not trying to get in between you."

"Didn't think that," Garrus said evenly.

"And it feels weird that we're talking about her without talking about her. If you know what I mean."

"Yeah," Garrus said, the ridges above his eyes shifting slightly. "I do. So how about we just agree that we're both bad at this, and then decide that we're good? With each other, I mean."

Kaidan exhaled slowly, his shoulders slackening. "Yeah. Works for me."

"I mean, I could be wrong, but I have this vague memory where we worked fairly well together," Garrus said, and Kaidan could've sworn he was being gently teased.

"God, it seems a long time ago," Kaidan said. "You remember it? Tearing from one side of the galaxy to the next, trying to figure it out as we went along?"

"Tell me how that part's changed?"

"It got bigger," Kaidan retorted.

"Yeah. That it did. All of it." Garrus' head lifted, his eyes piercingly blue. "I was on Palaven when it started. It was everything we'd feared and nothing like what I expected at the same time."

He nodded. "Yeah. It was like that on Earth. Happened so fast, and it was as if you just _knew_ there was nothing to do. Nothing we could do."

"Except run."

"Yeah." Kaidan grimaced. "Damn, that was cheerful."

Garrus laughed, the burred layers in his voice softening the sound. "Sorry."

"But you ended up on Menae, right?"

"Yeah. Desperate move. Didn't see any other option except to, yeah, run. We had to get the Primarch out, and Menae's always been solidly defensible." Garrus' teeth flashed in a quick, bleak smile. "Until it got stepped on by Reapers, anyway."

He nodded slowly, heavily. "You know the worst part? Well, today's worst part?"

"What?"

"When I think of Earth, now, _that's_ how I think of it. The way it was when we left. That's how I've only ever seen Thessia. How it was after the damn Reapers got there."

"Continuing the cheerful," Garrus muttered. "But yeah. I know what you mean."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"You went over Bailey's reports, right?"

"You mean about Cerberus?"

"Yeah. And Councilor Udina."

Garrus leaned forward, his eyes narrowing fiercely. "Yeah. I did. I get what he was saying, and I get why it's frustrating."

"One way of putting it," Kaidan said.

"When I was there, it was like every way I looked I hit red tape. And that's at lower level shit. The higher you climb, the harder you have to dig, and the harder you dig, the worse someone above you pushes back." Wryly Garrus added, "And when you start talking the Council, well, decent luck and a better reputation might get you a slightly faster _back off, this isn't your territory_ response."

Kaidan shook his head. "That just makes them sound like they're completely untouchable."

"No. That's Spectres," Garrus said, the sharp lines of his mouth shifting into a smile.

He laughed. "Fair enough. And untouchable or not, you did push after Arterius."

"Yeah, but you didn't hear Pallin's response at the time," Garrus said blandly. "It was full of handy career pointers like _get your ass back into worthwhile work_, _find an investigation that actually matters_, _less backtalk_, and _stop being so damn obstinate._ Hell, you were right."

"About what?"

"Seems a long time ago."

"Yeah."

Garrus blinked, as if he was shaking his thoughts aside. "You hungry?"

"Yes," Kaidan admitted. He straightened up, aware that the knot of tension at the back of his neck had seeped away. "Sounds like a good idea."

The mess hall was still close to empty, with only Tali and Adams sitting at the end of one of the shorter tables. After he'd found a tray, and figured out which of the evening's offerings looked the most approachable, he sat, nodding to both of them.

"Hey, Tali. Long day?"

She groaned, her head tilting back slightly. "I spent _hours_ today trying to coordinate with Koris. Or it seems like hours."

"Tell him you're busy," Garrus suggested, before he tugged a chair out and sat. "Delegate."

"I wanted to," Tali said. She shook her head, the light rippling across the curve of her faceplate. "But when we're talking about combined quarian-geth troop movements, we need the whole Admiralty Board to agree."

"Even Xen?"

"Even Xen," she said, and laughed. "It happens on occasion."

"Well," Garrus said wickedly. "You did stop thinking of the geth as the worst thing ever and start thinking an alliance was a good thing."

"Oh, be quiet," she retorted. "And I never thought the geth were the worst thing ever."

"I don't know," Kaidan said. "The first time I ran into a geth prime? That might've been the worst thing ever."

"That was before you talked to Sovereign," Tali said. "So it doesn't count."

"I didn't talk to Sovereign," Kaidan protested. "It talked to us and I stood there and shook like a leaf."

Garrus laughed and reached for his tray. "I'd say we all did."

* * *

><p>Shepard leaned over the vidcomm console, glared at it for good measure, and tried again, the last of her patience close to ebbing. "Hey, Traynor, you still in CIC?"<p>

The comm buzzed and Traynor answered, "Right here, Commander. Vidcomm not settling?"

"No."

"Give me a minute."

"Okay."

She waited, her shoulders too damn stiff and it was fucking _stupid_ but sometimes you spent so long _not_ talking to someone that the possibility of having to talk to them rose up, a gulf that lodged itself in your thoughts. A handful of sketchy messages back and forth with her mother and here she was, twitchy as a recruit who'd come in last on the easiest obstacle course.

"Going through now, Commander."

"Thanks, Traynor. You're invaluable."

"I try."

The vidcomm field trembled, pale blue and blurred at the edges. She clenched her hands over the rail again, considered that she was behaving like an idiot, and straightened up. She waited through another dragging handful of minutes before the vidcomm field rippled again, finally settling into the shape of her mother, all trim shoulders and immaculate uniform and pinned-back hair. She looked the same, Shepard thought, sort of, the ragged edges of the vidcomm field not quite able to pick out the details in her face.

"Hey, Mom," she said, and the words caught in her throat.

"Hey. You okay?" her mother asked, gently.

"Yeah. Well. We'll get there."

"I know you will."

"Is this the part where you tell me to keep eating and sleeping right?"

"Like you listen," her mother said, and smiled. "Are you?"

"Funny."

"Should I even ask where you are?"

"Middle of nowhere," Shepard answered, and knew her mother'd understand. Knew she'd understand the awful need to pad words with useless noise, to make it sound bland. "Comms are holding up."

"For now. I get it." Her mother's head tipped to one side, her gaze turning searching. "Okay. Indulge me."

"Yeah?" Shepard grinned and leaned on the railing. "About Cerberus or that bit where I was under house arrest?"

"Tone," her mother said, warningly, before she smiled again. "Look. I got a lot of the gory details from Admiral Hackett. So – so I guess I'd like to just hear from _you_. Not the mission, or the Reapers, or even the Crucible project."

"And here I wanted to ask what it looked like from the inside."

"Big," her mother said, mildly admonishing. "Initial reports on its design were accurate. It's a weapon. But it's also a weapon that's not quite finished."

"Missing pieces," Shepard said, and heard the bitterness edge through her own voice. Unbidden she thought of Leviathan, and how it had hovered in the water, its voice slicing into her head. How it had stated, solemn and flat and patient, that it had seen or heard or maybe even remembered from its ancestors the Crucible, _attempted_.

_"Go on," Shepard snapped, the air in her lungs somehow not quite enough, constricting. _

_ "That is it. That is all." A thread of bland amusement wove through the creature's voice. "Outcome unknown." _

"What happened?"

"I'm that easy to see through, am I?" Shepard tapped her fingers against the rail. "I made a bad call on the ground, and things went south for a bit."

"That happens," her mother said evenly.

"Yeah." Unaccountably – _stupidly_ – her throat was thick, and it was suddenly absurdly fucking hard to look up. "It does. How about I shake things up and tell you something just about me?"

Her mother laughed, the sound of it as easy and unhurried as she remembered. "Stun me."

"Yeah, now I say that, you've got me feeling like I'm about sixteen. Okay, no work talk," she added, almost to herself. "I should've said just about us."

Her mother grinned in that softly teasing way she should've expected. "You damn well let that slip on purpose."

"Yeah," she admitted. "He's very tall, blue eyes. Former C-Sec. Military experience."

Her mother raised an eyebrow. "And the part you're not telling me..?"

"He's a turian."

"Right."

"You're not horrified?"

"Surprised." Her mother smiled and said, "And rather wondering how it works."

"_Mom_."

"Sorry."

"You aren't."

"A little." Her mother's expression softened. "You two okay?"

"Yeah," Shepard said, and swallowed. "We really are."

"He's with you?"

"Yeah. I found him on Menae."

"Christ. I heard what happened there. And to Palaven."

"Yeah," Shepard said. "It was rough all over. Still is."

"Yeah, I hear that. So. You going to tell me his name?"

"Garrus," Shepard said, very softly. She made herself look back up and into her mother's face. "His name's Garrus. You'd like him."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Least I hope you would. He's, ah. Yeah."

Her mother laughed, not mocking. "It must be serious if you're speechless."

"Yeah," she said, and the strange thickness was back in her throat again. "It is."

"Then after this is over, you can damn well learn how to message more regularly and I'll let you know that I like him," her mother said.

"I message. Sometimes."

"Yes, because, _hey, Mom, I'm still breathing, contrary to other reports_ is the best way to hear about you," her mother said wryly.

"Sorry."

"Don't be." For long searching moments her mother looked at her, unguardedly. "You did what you had to do. You always have."

"God, Mom. You want me to get a heap of tissues now?"

"Only if you want to."

"I'll pass." She paused, not quite sure how to frame the rest of the words. Not quite sure how to say what might be half a farewell and half a promise and fuck it but her heartbeat was galloping. "Hey, you know I miss you, right?"

"I know. And you know after this, we can catch up properly, and I can berate you properly for dropping out of contact."

She laughed, surprising herself. "Sounds good."

Her mother shifted, stepping back slightly. "You know I'm proud of you, right?"

"Yeah," she said. "I do. And it's so good to hear it. Hey, Mom?"

"Yes?"

"You'll take care of yourself?"

"You're telling me?" Her mother's smile wavered slightly. She lifted one of her hands before dropping it back down to her belt. "Of course I will. Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Keep talking," her mother said. "You didn't think you were going to get away that easily, did you?"

"No," Shepard said, and grinned. "I guess I didn't."

* * *

><p>Garrus glowered at the datapad propped over his knees. After it unhelpfully stayed unchanged, he flicked through to the next report. Very briefly he wondered if he could get away with simply letting Victus know he couldn't handle long lists of supplies, options and colony resources any more.<p>

The door whirred open, and Shepard stepped in, her hands hooked into her belt.

"If I tell Victus I've miraculously misplaced his updates, do you reckon he'll stop sending them?"

Shepard smiled. "You'd ending up actually missing them eventually."

"Eventually." She was _quiet_, he noticed, as if she was all curled in on herself, uncertain. "Hey. What is it?"

"Got through to my mom."

Garrus waited until she'd crossed the floor to the couch. When she ensconced herself beside him, slinging her legs over his, he said, "She's okay?"

"She was so," Shepard said, and shook her head. "I'm an idiot. I've been throwing out these half-hearted fucking emails, and then when I talk to her, all she wants to do is tell me how proud she is."

"It's okay."

"Yeah. I guess. I just – I'm an idiot."

"No, you had a lot to work through."

"Don't be so sensible," she told him archly.

She turned silent again and achingly, he understood. Understood how you tried to patch over the years or the days or however long with the flimsy scaffolding of words and how the time would run away with itself, damnably and viciously.

"You know," Garrus said gently. "I'm hardly the expert on stable, understanding parent-child relationships, but everything you've ever said about her makes me think she'd get why it took you so long."

"Yeah. I know." She shook herself then, as if she was trying to jolt herself out of the tangle of her own thoughts. "Hang on. Parent-_child_ relationships?"

He shrugged innocently. "Parent-grown-up-child relationships?"

"Funny."

Idly Garrus leaned forward, folding his arms over her shins. She was warm, he noticed, and when he stroked one hand across the lean curve of her calf, she smiled. "What else did she say?"

"She's with Hackett. Working on the Crucible. And you know, it sounds fucking terrible, because I wanted to talk about anything but Reapers and the Crucible."

"They're a fairly big factor right now," he said drily, and dodged the lazy swipe she aimed at his shoulder.

"She says it's coming together," Shepard said. "Starting to actually look like a weapon."

"Reassuring."

"Also significantly less embarrassing than if it'd turned out to be something entirely pointless."

Garrus groaned. "Alright. _That_ was terrible."

"She's dividing her time between working with Hackett and using her crew to, well, anything. Shuttle runs for refugees, shipping supplies through, wherever they need to be that they can get to."

"Good," he said fiercely.

"I told her about you and me."

His teeth clicked together. "You did? I mean, good, right?"

Shepard laughed. "Yes, very good. She wants to meet you."

"That's not good," he protested. "That's terrifying."

"Garrus Vakarian, you aren't scared of anything, so you don't get to pull that excuse."

"Worth a try," he said, and was rewarded when she laughed again, softly.

He reached for her, sliding one hand into her hair. The dark strands pushed against his fingers, catching. She turned into his palm, her lips brushing his skin. His thumb rolled under her jaw and he felt her pulse leap. She shifted onto him, moving slowly, languid and – _from the way her smile turned wicked _– knowing damn well his gaze was locked on her. Her knees settled on either side of him, her weight familiar and teasing and when he caught at her hips and dragged her closer, her smile broke into laughter.

"Impatient?"

"Distracted," Garrus answered, and rucked her shirt up until he could feel the enticing slide of the muscles in her back. Retaliating, she slipped her hands along the back of his neck and up, under his fringe until he shivered. "Even more distracted," he muttered.

"That's the idea."

"That's evil."

"Complaining?"

"Not at all."

Garrus tugged her shirt up, frowned when the fabric bunched awkwardly, and let her help him haul it off. For long moments he stared at her, at the bruises that still mottled her shoulders and spread down one side of her ribs. _From Thessia,_ he thought, and he'd seen it, the heartstoppingly dreadful fall she'd taken, when the stone had given way and she'd clambered her way back out, her face all chalky.

"Hey," Shepard said, gently.

"Sorry," he said ruefully.

"Don't be." She leaned down, pressing her mouth along the side of his until he tasted the damp edge of her tongue. "Want some more incentive?"

"I have plenty," he told her, deliberately mimicking her tone.

She had her hands busy at his belt when the comm station buzzed.

"Commander," Traynor said. "Sorry to bother you."

Shepard stifled a laugh against Garrus' shoulder. "Go ahead, Traynor."

"I've got Admiral Hackett on the comms." In that slightly teasing tone, Traynor added, "Apparently he has fairly good news for once."

"Be a start," Shepard muttered. "I mean, tell him I'm on my way."


End file.
